Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have always been clear that the UK must maintain control of the regulations governing one of its most important sectors and, crucially, a sector that the UK taxpayer stands behind. Those regulations have to be made in the UK. The agreement we have negotiated with the EU in the political declaration means that each side would make its own choices on regulation through its own legislative processes, and if any of these lead to our respective regulatory regimes no longer being equivalent, either side would have the right to withdraw market access.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The financial services sector is not above the law. If I can take the Chancellor back to the loan charge, what steps is he taking against accounting firms that told my constituents, who are working in the IT sector with a Government Department, that these schemes were perfectly legal? My constituents now find themselves laden with debt from HMRC and paying these things back. What is he doing about those corrupt accountants?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. As well as pursuing tax avoiders themselves, we have to pursue those who promote tax avoidance. My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has just told me that there are over 100 promoters of avoidance schemes who are currently under active investigation by HMRC.

Spring Statement

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I suppose that is a manifestation of the universal truth that you can never satisfy. A good case has been made for providing free sanitary products in secondary schools and colleges where there is a controlled environment for their distribution and where the bulk of the need clearly lies. Of course, I understand that there is an issue regarding primary schools. I am open to sensible suggestions for how we might address that, but the core of the problem is in secondary schools and colleges. We have addressed that today, and I hope the hon. Lady recognises that.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The DEFRA budget has been cut by 35% over the past eight years, so while I welcome what the Chancellor has said on the future homes standard, which is genuinely new and innovative, he cannot expect the people in Natural England and the Environment Agency to keep doing more with less while enduring a pay freeze—a 15% real-terms pay cut over the past 10 years.

Our Prime Minister has signed up to the sustainable development goals. In July, she will go to New York and say what she is doing to end poverty, violence and hunger. With infant mortality and child hunger rising, what has the Chancellor announced today to tackle that?

[Mr Hammond]

As I have said, this is not a fiscal statement today. I take on board the various points the hon. Lady has made, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is of course going to the conference in New York. Sometimes I do not recognise this country from the descriptions I hear from Opposition Members—[Interruption.] I get out plenty, but I do not recognise this country from their descriptions. Of course we have problems and challenges, but could we stop talking Britain down relentlessly?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. On an issue as important to our nation’s future as our exit from the European Union, I welcome any opportunity to build consensus across the House and the nation. He is right to draw attention to what the OBR said. Even a very small decline in our productivity performance would add huge amounts to the debt and would reduce, by significant amounts, our projected growth in GDP. That is why it is so important that we now act responsibly in maintaining fiscal discipline and ensuring that we reduce our debt over time.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

How is the Chancellor’s consensus building around the Cabinet table going? Will he update the House on his assessment of the trade deals that will be done after we leave the single market? He knows that Brexit is going to cause a fiscal shock. Is it true that he has challenged the Secretary of State for International Trade to disprove Treasury calculations that show there is no trade deal we can do after leaving the European Union that will make up for the huge loss of trade that Brexit will create?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is assuming that we will lose trade with the European Union. It is clear to me that, all other things being equal, the ability to enter bilateral trade deals with third countries will be a positive for our economy. Of course, we also want to protect our trade with the European Union. My focus is on ensuring that we get a Brexit deal that protects our existing patterns of trade and commercial engagement with the European Union, as well as, over time, allowing us to explore new opportunities beyond the European Union.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman understands very well that being a member of the single market was not an option for the UK given the clear views expressed by the electorate in the referendum, but having comprehensive access to the single market will deliver the great majority of the benefits that he seeks from single market membership.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Some 100,000 UK businesses have already registered companies in the Republic of Ireland to hedge their bets given the policy and regulatory uncertainty caused by the vote to leave the European Union. Will the Chancellor urge his Cabinet colleagues, when they are negotiating around the table, to give policy and regulatory certainty to industries such as the chemical industry, which are not waiting to see what the Government are doing, but are simply haemorrhaging jobs and investment out of this country?

[Mr Hammond]

I agree with the hon. Lady that certainty as soon as possible is important, as are understanding of what implementation arrangements will look like and over what timescale. However, I urge her not to be hysterical about these things. [Interruption.] Many companies are making contingency plans, including setting up and incorporating subsidiaries in other European Union countries. It is another step altogether to be moving jobs and enterprises abroad. Most of the companies that we talk to have made it clear that there is more time yet for them to be reassured during this process before we see irrevocable moves.

[Mary Creagh]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Point of Order

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

In response to my recent Treasury question, the Chancellor of the Exchequer accused me of being hysterical. May we have a ruling from you in the Chair, Mr Speaker, about that sort of sexist language, which is used to diminish women who make a perfectly reasonable point? That sort of language would not have been used had I been a man. My question on the registration of companies in Ireland had nothing to do with the condition of my womb travelling to my head, as in the traditional rhetoric about hysterics. I expect that sort of language from the sketch writers of the Daily Mail, not from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not accuse the hon. Lady of being hysterical; I urged her not to be hysterical. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that Russian air strikes have killed 400 civilians, 97 of whom were children. When the Foreign Secretary meets Foreign Minister Lavrov in a couple of weeks will he urge him to refocus those air strikes away from the opposition armies that are fighting Assad’s reign of terror towards the terrorists who brought down that Russian airliner?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

That is absolutely right. That is exactly what we have urged the Russians to do. If they want to fight ISIL we are happy to work with them, but at the moment a significant proportion—the majority, in fact—of their airstrikes are directed at the moderate opposition fighting Assad. In fairness, I should say that since the Russians acknowledged that it almost certainly was terrorist action that brought down that airliner they have directed a larger proportion of their strikes against ISIL-held territory.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. This is exactly the Prime Minister’s point: many of the people we see on our television screens walking down railway lines are fit young men coming to Europe to look for work—and that’s fine—but there are also many extraordinarily vulnerable individuals in displaced persons camps who are simply not able to try to make that difficult and dangerous crossing into Europe, and we will take those people, asking the UN to prioritise the most vulnerable.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Some of those fit young men are fleeing the conscription of Assad’s regime because they do not want to kill their own people. Turkey and Lebanon cannot continue indefinitely to absorb the millions of refugees from Syria’s crisis. What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do to respond with compassion and competence in the European Union? Will he reconsider his decision not to participate in the resettlement from within the EU, as Ireland and Denmark have done?