EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance
Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Matt Hancock(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Would a reasonable and fair-minded person not conclude that having been rebuffed in their attempts last September to alter on a sui generis basis the purdah rules relating to the referendum, the Government have come back and undermined the sovereignty of this House by using the civil service to achieve the very same objective?
Matthew Hancock
No, on the contrary. This guidance is a precise consequence of the Prime Minister’s decision to allow Ministers to campaign to leave. If the Prime Minister had not decided to allow Ministers to remain in the Government but to campaign to leave the European Union against the recommendation of the Government, such rules would not be necessary and we would not have had to publish them. This is a direct consequence of the Prime Minister’s decision to allow that debate to take place and to allow Ministers to take one or other side of the debate.
Start-up Loans
Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Matt Hancock(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Matthew Hancock
I pay tribute to the Erewash Partnership. Such local business support groups, as well as LEPs, the chambers of commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Forum of Private Business, the CBI and the Institute of Directors, play a part in making sure that businesses get to know what is available and are given support. We work in partnership with many of those organisations, which have done a great deal to make such a success of the scheme.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I believe it is a moral imperative for the Government to offer a route from welfare dependency and poverty to self-employment and prosperity, and on that basis I strongly welcome the scheme. Will the Minister undertake to look at the work done by third sector and voluntary groups, such as the Cambridgeshire Community Foundation and the Peterborough-based Cross Keys Homes, in helping tenants and those not usually involved in the business world to avail themselves of the scheme and access funding for micro-businesses and SMEs?
Matthew Hancock
Yes, I will do that. The fact that more than a third of the loans have gone to people who are unemployed is one of the scheme’s great strengths. Along with the new enterprise allowance, the scheme is helping us to reduce unemployment for people who do not want to go into an ordinary 9 to 5 job, and instead want to grow their own business.