National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th February 2025 Grand Committee

I hope that the Minister will see this proposal as a constructive suggestion that supports the Government’s long-term fiscal plan and accepts that national insurance will rise, but aims to minimise the damage caused. It is in that spirit that I commend these amendments to the Committee.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. I want to speak briefly in support of this series of amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes and others. It is very important to listen to what somebody such as my noble friend Lord Wolfson, who is involved in the retail industry, has just said.

I know, given my experience of dealing with the Treasury as a Minister, that it takes an absolutist position on most things. The Treasury does not like to cede any point at all; it regards that as some sort of weakness. I suspect that the Minister has been told that this is what the Treasury has decided and that he is not to resile from any of the arguments or rescind any of the inherent parts of the Bill. However, this proposal would not really change anything.

We on this side of the House are not arguing against these increases. However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke in Davos about reinvigorating the economy and instilling confidence in it, at the same time as the Government are going to kick in the solar plexus a lot of those entering the market—people leaving university, for instance, and trying to get into the job market for the first time. They have an astonishing combination of challenges ahead of them, not least because of student loan repayments and the cost of housing.

If these changes are instigated so quickly now, where are the companies’ savings going to come from? They can come only from freezing employment and shedding jobs, from passing on the costs to the consumer and from totally stopping their R&D budgets. All these things are not, I would argue, in the long-term interests of the British economy.

By all means let these changes come, but let the market be prepared—the market being the employers, who can look at these changes and spend more time trying to accommodate them. Otherwise the Government are going to achieve what they think they are going to achieve on the one hand with an increase in income from these increases, but at the same time there must be a decrease because there will be fewer people in employment and more people needing some kind of financial support, which will have the precise inverse effect of what we are told the Government are seeking to achieve.

I hope that the Minister will realise that we are not trying to attack the principle of what the Government are trying to do. We recognise the fact that the Government need to raise revenue from somewhere, but we are asking the Government to think more holistically about the knock-on effects on those very people who they maintain they are also trying to help.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support these amendments. It occurs to me—I would be interested to know whether it is true—that this must be the first series of amendments where the three signatories have all been directors of FTSE 100 companies. That must tell us something. I think it is the first time, but I will be happy to be proven wrong.

It is a great pleasure to speak after one of my role models—she does not know it, but it is true—my noble friend Lady Noakes, as well as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and, particularly, my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Apsley Guise, who is widely regarded as one of the leading businessmen of his generation. I say that because he is from a younger generation than me, perhaps. He has an outstanding business career that has created thousands of jobs and tremendous value for shareholders. Thankfully, he still has time to contribute to your Lordships’ House and other communal activities, so when he speaks I think we should listen carefully. He is right to say that there is some truth that more expensive labour leads to greater productivity, mainly because productivity is measured as output per hour so, by definition, productivity improves, but it is not necessarily a good thing in and of itself. He mentioned the food sector. Certainly, in the hospitality sector I know of companies that are just closing down. This increase has led them to say that they are going to give it up, which cannot be what the Government want.

On 6 January, Next reported anaemic growth as the result of the tax measures. On the very same day, S&P Global’s Purchasing Managers’ Index came out and said that nearly 25% of British businesses reduced their workforce following the Budget specifically. The index indicated that the private sector has experienced its weakest growth in 14 months, with firms shedding jobs at the fastest pace in more than 15 years, other than during the pandemic. HMRC released its payroll data on 21 January. Employees in the UK declined by 47,000 to 30.3 million in December alone, the biggest drop since November 2020, which again was pandemic-related. As my noble friend Lord Wolfson mentioned, Sainsbury’s came out on 23 January with cuts to head office of 3,000 and an ambition to reduce senior management roles by 20%. Recently, on 27 January, the Confederation of British Industry reported that private sector firms expect a significant decline in activity over the next three months with a weighted balance of 22% negative. It said that this pessimism is widespread across sectors including services, distribution and manufacturing. The downturn was mainly due to the Budget.

With the assistance of someone who is much smarter than me on spreadsheets, I have tried to calculate the effect of all this. Although I am an economist by background, this is not a specialist area for me, so I would be extremely grateful if the Minister would ask the Treasury to comment on the numbers that I am going to give him. I think that they are right, but I would be more than happy to be challenged if they are not.

My premise is that the average UK earnings per full-time employee is £33,280. The number of full-time equivalents in the UK is bang on 30 million. If you increase the existing employers’ NI rate of 13.8% to 15% and reduce the existing NI threshold of £9,100 to £5,000, you get an increase in total NI take from £100 billion to £127.2 billion, giving you a total employers’ NI increase of £27.2 billion—or, to be precise, £27.154 billion—which is the sum that the Chancellor seeks. Fair enough. But, given all that we have heard today, what happens if employment reduces? You can put in any variable you like. I have taken what I regard to be a most reasonable suggestion of 3%. Let us say that, as a result of this, there is a 3% reduction in employment. Personally, I think it would be much more, but let us say 3%. At that point, the number of UK full-time equivalents becomes 29.1 million. The employers’ NI take goes to £123 billion, which is a reduction of £3.8 billion. But, at the same time, there is universal credit for those redundant full-time equivalents of £20,000 a head, which costs the Treasury £18 billion. If you add the loss of that universal credit to the reduction in NI take that I have just mentioned, you get a net loss of—guess what—bang on £27.05 billion. So, the 3% reduction in employment that I reckon will happen leads to absolutely no gain to the Treasury whatever.

I present those figures because I would like to be challenged on them and proven wrong, but I do not think that I am. Along with the signatories to the amendment, I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to reflect carefully, in the spirit of co-operation, as to whether it is wise to bring this measure in so harshly, so quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Monckton of Dallington Forest in much the same way. If all goes to plan, I will speak on Thursday in respect of social care homes, particularly adult social care homes, where many of the same issues arise. I cannot imagine the response if a Conservative Government had decided to put national insurance rises on such institutions; can noble Lords begin to see the headlines that would be against us?

This House is a revising Chamber; it allows the Government the opportunity to pause, rethink and consider, and if ever there was a case to do so, this is it. Before the Government have the acute embarrassment of urging Peers to go through the Division Lobby to penalise care homes and hospices in such a way, I very much hope that they will take advantage of the gap between Committee and Report to reflect on the arguments.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I too support my noble friend Lady Monckton of Dallington Forest and thank her for her very moving and informed speech. It triggered a memory for me. I was approached by the Children’s Hospice South West for a fundraiser —my goodness, I think it was 15 years ago—and managed to raise a record amount by putting on an event for it. I saw for myself the astonishing job that hospices do. They provide a level of care and places that many of these people—children, in particular—could not find elsewhere, so the question for the Minister is this: if some of them are to shed staff and therefore be less able to take these very needy children and their relations, where will the Government step in? How will they take up the slack and what, ultimately, will be the cost to the Government?

I have some sympathy with the Minister. He has come here today to hold the Treasury line, of course, but we are wasting our time if, to each and every group of amendments we table, the stock reply is, “The Government need to raise the money. They don’t recognise the figures that the Opposition are presenting”, and we move on to another set of amendments. That does not suggest to me much dialogue or debate. But I congratulate the Minister on one thing: so far in our deliberations this afternoon he has not alluded once to the fictitious £22 billion black hole.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, listening to noble Lords present the case for Amendment 29, I agreed with every single word that was said. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, said that an exemption was required. Amendment 29 does not ask for that exemption; it asks for an assessment to be done, and therefore it does not mean that an exemption would come, which is why, on day one in Committee, we on these Benches tabled an amendment to say that an exemption for hospices should apply. If we bring that back on Report, I hope that the noble Baroness will support us as we hold our ground.

I want to talk briefly to the other amendment in this group: Amendment 41, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, regarding the increase in the employer allowance to £20,000 for hospices. Just as a matter of fact, the average number of staff per hospice is 81 full-time equivalent employees, and the average salary is £23,626. Therefore, the average total salary bill for a hospice is £1.863 million, so a £20,000 employment allowance will be absolutely useless because hospitals will still be clobbered by the national insurance contribution increase. That is why we put them down for an exemption, and we hold our ground on that.

Economic Growth

Lord Swire Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, on that note, I do not want to do anything this afternoon to dent the happiness index. I start by referring to my entry in the register of interests and by joining in the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for instigating this debate and for what I thought was an exceptional speech with a lot of meat in it.

I recently read an article by that eminent Oxford political scientist, Professor Ben Ansell, who asked what this Government’s theory of growth was and came up with the conclusion, rather disappointingly, that there was no consistent theory or ideology. I do not know whether that is true, but I do know that there are a lot of mixed messages coming out of the Government at the moment.

I have been following closely the utterances of the Chancellor in Davos. She is saying some very interesting and, to my way of thinking, very positive things. One thing she said is that growth is to triumph over all else. However, at the same time as she is saying that, other members of her Government, including Ed Miliband, are still rushing to net zero. At the same time, we are told, we are looking at the prospect of an energy deficit, and there can surely be no greater impediment to growth than rationing power, which is something we might be looking at. These inherent contradictions unfortunately permeate through all parts of government thinking on growth. We are closing down the North Sea at the same time that President Trump’s mantra is to drill, drill, drill. Someone is right, and I do not think it is us.

This afternoon I want to talk about a couple of things. One is education. I simply do not understand where the Government are coming from in tinkering with our academies. I no longer know whether the Prime Minister thinks that academies are good or bad: there seems to be no consistency. The Government have driven 20,000 fee-paying students into the state school sector—which is struggling to accommodate them, and I have no doubt that there will be more to follow—and are changing the national curriculum. I ask the Minister: are they doing all these things out of a narrow ideology, or do they genuinely think it is going to better equip our young workforce for the workforce challenges ahead, particularly in the competitive world of things such as AI and quantum computing?

We know that unemployment is up and that NICs are going to attack all, not least the lowest paid—we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, about hospitality, which is going to be adversely hit—and those on the bottom rung of the employment ladder.

We know that we have a problem with productivity. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai; we are now signing off many more people for all kinds of mental health reasons. I read a very good article by the noble Lord, Lord Rose of Monewden, who said that working from home is a disaster and that in his opinion the country has gone back 20 years in the past four. The Government can show a real commitment to productivity and growth by insisting that civil servants return to their desks. In the United States, President Trump is about to sack great rafts of employees who refuse to do that.

The Government are now talking about tinkering with the visa regime to fill knowledge gaps in AI and the life sciences. Is that a tacit admission that we are unable to provide people of that quality in our own country at a time when we have a record population of 67 million, up from 50 million in 1950?

I want to think about our image abroad. What are we trying to sell to the international investment community? Are we to be a low-regulated, highly taxed digital economy or something different? We should look again at how we attract inward investment. I welcome the fact that we will look again at the non-dom policy. Millions of pounds have left this country; these people are highly mobile and, once they go, it is astonishingly difficult to attract them back.

Those are all the negatives. The positive is that the UK is still the second most popular place to invest. We have huge convening power, unequalled soft power and links through all the great international bodies, from NATO to AUKUS and the Security Council. And yes, we have the Commonwealth, which I go on about regularly—56 willing countries that would trade with us much more if only we were prepared to show that we took them seriously and wanted to trade with them.

Renewable Energy: Costs

Lord Swire Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I crave the House’s indulgence for largely lifting the comments I will make from a contribution to a debate we had in February this year. I was going to make a few rather politically pris comments until I discovered that, in February, the Minister who answered was a Conservative Minister. Rereading his answers, I found them as unsatisfactory as some of the things I have heard since.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Frost on what is a timely debate. I will limit my remarks to a very narrow part of it: the costs of transmitting the renewable energy that we are debating. There is absolutely no consensus on these costs at all.

I do not share the sentiment—although I understand it—expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about the “majesty” of a whole new generation of pylons marching across our countryside. In fact, that is when the public will begin to lose their enthusiasm for renewable energy. There are other ways of doing it, but we first need to address some fundamental questions. Why are we locating substations for bringing offshore renewable energy onshore, when countries such as Holland and Belgium are planning vast offshore substations? They are absolutely huge. Why is it current UK policy that, instead of pooling the power from the 18 or so wind farms around the country and having limited interconnectors, the National Grid is offering an individual connection to each offshore wind farm? It is completely unthought through and unnecessary.

On the subject of burying power lines versus not burying them, the technology is ever-changing, and some of the figures that have been bandied about by National Grid and others are simply unrecognisable. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is right: we do not build things very well any more. If you look back to the 1850s, when we carried telegraph traffic across the transatlantic cable, we were one of the first to do that, and five years later, Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti designed the first high-voltage underground mains cable, which he used to connect the Grosvenor Gallery to Deptford substation, and which carried 10,000 volts. These were all highly innovative and revolutionary acts of engineering. But we can do the same now; we need to have a debate about the various costs of ploughing in and trenching power lines. The new technologies are there, and we know that the environmental benefits of burying power lines in terms of reducing outages, the effects on the flora and fauna and bird life, and the visual impact as well on our landscapes are there and need to be factored into any cost-based analysis.

There was some question about the cost of burying power lines, particularly in East Anglia, and that is a good example. The National Energy System Operator, which formed part of the former National Grid, maintains, on the power lines which it is proposing to build overland in East Anglia, that if that timeframe was to slip to 2034, an underground cable system would come in £600 million cheaper than using pylons. So, we need an honest debate about the various costs, but I urge anybody who is keen on increasing the amount of renewables transmitted to this country to think very carefully about how we do that if we are to carry the public with us.

UK Population Growth

Lord Swire Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The analysis by the ONS does not go into that, but we have published the long-term workforce plan for the NHS, which has been accompanied by the largest ever injection into various things such as NHS scanners. Our plan is to recruit and train more doctors and nurses in Britain, which will be supported by over £2 billion over the next five years. Indeed, some of the immigration is NHS workers who have come to help the country deal with its problems.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, one of the reasons we are told that we are witnessing record levels of net immigration—745,000 in 2022—is that there are currently 900,000 job vacancies in this country, but UK unemployment is at an almost record historic low of 3.8%. It seems to me that the problem is that there are now 5.6 million people in this country on out-of-work benefits and an alarming 4,000 new applications for those benefits every single day. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that that is neither desirable nor sustainable?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The figure for June 2023 was actually down to 672,000 people, but my noble friend is right to point to the problem of underemployment. The focus of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in changing the benefits system and helping people into work is to improve skills so that everybody in this country who can possibly do a job has one, because that is very much related to contentment and happiness—certainly in my own experience. It is a very important area of work that this Government have truly underlined.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My friend is right. Commonwealth citizens have permanently had the right to vote in British elections, and that is absolutely right, and, as far as I know, most Commonwealth countries reciprocate. Our relationship with Ireland means that all Irish nationals have an automatic right to vote in UK elections and vice versa.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

rose—

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, I will not give way.

It seems to me—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, I will not give way.

It seems to me—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, I will not give way.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

On that point—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have already said I will not give way, but I will say it again—no!

[Sir Hugo Swire]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. He has been in the House since 2001 so he is familiar with parliamentary etiquette, which stipulates quite clearly that when somebody who has the Floor is not giving way, he should accept the verdict. He does not have a right to intervene and he should have learned that by now.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I want to make the point that we want any election to involve as many people as possible. It is meant to be a big exercise in democracy, and I hope the amendments—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have already said that I will not give way, so I say it again for the fourth time—no!

In that election, everyone should have the right to participate. It is their future and this country’s future that is at stake.

The Prime Minister has failed in his promise to be out of the European Union, do or die, on 31 October, but it may be the date that Parliament dissolves, thereby marking the end of his tenure in office. Whatever date the House decides for the election, I am ready for it, we are ready for it. We want to be able to say to the people of this country that there is an alternative to austerity, there is an alternative to inequality, there is an alternative to sweetheart trade deals with Donald Trump, and there is an alternative of a Government who invest in all parts of the country, a Government who are determined to end injustice in our society, and a Government who are determined to give our young people a sense of hope in their society, rather than the prospects of indebtedness and insecure employment in the future, which, sadly, is all a Conservative Government and their coalition with the Lib Dems have ever brought them. I am very ready to go out there and give that message in any election whenever it comes.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I think there is actually a broad level of agreement among Members across the House, including the odd one over on the Conservative Benches as well, that the time has surely come to extend the franchise. I hope we do not end up in a situation where we have a general election in December and it will be another five years before we can even consider this possible enfranchisement. It would therefore have been a timely opportunity to seize the issue, but we have chosen not to do so.

On the amendments that have been selected, we are very much in favour of the one suggesting that the election should move to 9 December, and we shall vote for it tonight. The Government said that they wanted an election as soon as possible, so why would they not wish to have it three days earlier than the date—

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

rose—

[Tommy Sheppard]

I think I have taken enough interventions, in fairness—I need to conclude.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

rose—

[Tommy Sheppard]

No, thank you. [Interruption.] No, thank you. Which part of “no” don’t you understand?

A 9 December election brings a number of benefits. It enables more of the electorate to participate and it puts an extra little bit of distance between the election and Christmas. Furthermore, it does not inconvenience our ability to conclude our business in this Parliament in any way. We could get our business finished and have Dissolution at the end of this week, so it is entirely doable. I do not understand why the Government, who have been so determined that there must be an election as soon as possible, are so resistant to doing it three days earlier. Let us do it as soon as possible, in order to get this lot out as soon as possible.

Finally, and uncharacteristically, I would like to thank the Government for their technical amendment, which simply eradicates the disadvantage that there would be in the electoral registration process in Scotland, occasioned by the fact that we have a bank holiday on 30 November for St Andrew’s day. I hope that the Committee will pass the amendment and put us all on a level playing field. With that, I shall conclude my remarks and look forward to the general election to come.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

On the last point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), I should declare an interest: St Andrew’s day will also be the day of my 60th birthday.

By 30 November, I shall no longer be a Member of Parliament, because I am not standing at the forthcoming election. I have been here since 2001, and I have to say that the last few years have not been Parliament at its best. It would be difficult to find a rare statement made by any one of us over the past two years. It has been like groundhog day every day, and the public are getting extremely fed up with our behaviour. In fact, I have never known such a disconnect between the body politic and the public, and I believe that any device or attempt to frustrate our having a general election now will be viewed extremely badly by the public, who, as I say, are extremely fed up with our behaviour.

We all understand why the Scottish nationalist party wants to have an election—because it knows that the court case starting in January will lay bare the divisions between those who support Alex Salmond and those who support Nicola Sturgeon. SNP Members know that if the election is delayed until next year, they will suffer at the polls. It is strange for a party that prides itself on looking after one of the devolved parts of the United Kingdom to play party politics with Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) laughs in rather a tinny way.

[David Linden]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

No, I will not give way. As a former Minister of State for Northern Ireland, which I do not believe the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) is, I care passionately about Northern Ireland, and I am concerned about some aspects of how the proposed legislation affects Northern Ireland. That said, it is my understanding that if the date of the election is brought forward, that will prevent much of the legislation we need to empower the civil service in Northern Ireland to do their job. Why are the Scottish Nats prepared to play politics, and to what end, with the people of Northern Ireland if they care about Northern Ireland, or perhaps they wish to cast them to one side?

I am extremely glad and relieved that the wrecking amendments have not been selected, such as the one giving EU nationals the right to vote in British elections. I ask again: where can British citizens vote in national elections in the EU? The answer is nowhere. In terms of the sudden discovery that votes should be given to 16-year-olds as a matter of course, everybody realises that that cannot be done in the timetable available; it is another wrecking amendment.

The British people are watching our deliberations this evening. They want an election. They understand that the date for the election is partially informed by the desire to have good governance and good government for the people of Northern Ireland. It is worth remembering that the institutions are not up and running there. It would be foolhardy to bring the election forward by a matter of days and frustrate that, and therefore amendment 2 should be resisted.

[Andrew Percy]

My intervention was somewhat long, so I thought I would make a speech to make a small contribution to this debate.

I absolutely welcome the fact that we are going to have a general election. It is a sadness, in a way, that this Parliament has not been able to run its full term, particularly given that the last one also ran for only two years. This Parliament has not been able to run its full term because, very sadly, people in this place did not do what they said they were going to do in the 2017 election, which was to honour the referendum result.

We have heard some of that in some of the speeches this afternoon. What has gone on since that election in 2017, in which the overwhelming majority of us were re-elected to deliver Brexit? I accept that the SNP Members had a different position, and they have consistently followed the line they took in the general election, but that is not the case for most of the rest of us. What has happened is that we have seen the belittling of the referendum result and talking down to the people who dared to vote to leave the European Union.

We have heard some of that again today. Indeed, the contribution of the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), did the same, implying that Brexiteers and people who voted leave did not really know what they were voting for.

Prime Minister's Update

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think that everyone has to reflect on their use of language. On the other hand, we must get Brexit done. I say in all candour that we must make sure that we end this national Brexchosis and national anxiety by delivering on the will of the people. [Interruption.] No amount of yammering from the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) will put us off doing that, and no amount of synthetic outrage or confected indignation will deter us either.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Opposition Members are very quick to talk about the economic vulnerability of their constituents. The truth is that this country is vulnerable economically, because of the uncertainty created by Brexit and the lack of the resolution of the Brexit issue. There is a mountain of money waiting to come to this country, and I believe that once Brexit is resolved, it will come and create better jobs—better paid jobs—for all our constituents. With that in mind, if Opposition Members really do care about the economic welfare of their constituents, they should get behind the Prime Minister in getting a deal.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend speaks of what he knows, because he has done so much to attract investment to this country, and there is a huge amount to come if, as he rightly says, this House can come together and get a deal over the line. I hope very much that we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are all concerned by the incidents of knife crime that we have seen. We are all concerned with the incidents that we saw over the weekend, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims. Too many lives of potential are being cut short, and those individuals and their families are being cruelly robbed of those futures.

We have not been failing to act on this; we have been acting on this. We have ensured that we are working across the board, because it takes all of society to work on this issue. It is not just an issue of policing. We have made more powers available to police—[Interruption.] Some Labour Members say it is just an issue of policing. No, we need to ensure that young people do not carry knives. We need to ensure that young people are taken away from a route into crime. That means dealing with drugs; it means dealing with gangs. We have provided more funding to police. We have provided extra powers to police. Sadly, the Labour party voted against that.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Q2. What message does the Prime Minister have for the people of Hong Kong at this difficult time?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this issue. I have been shocked, as I am sure Members across the House have been, to see the scenes from Hong Kong on Monday and the use of violence at the Legislative Council. The vast majority of the hundreds of thousands who marched did so peacefully and lawfully. This week’s anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong is a reminder of the importance of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the joint declaration, and it is vital that Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and the rights and freedoms set down in the Sino-British joint declaration are respected. I have raised my concerns directly with Chinese leaders, as have my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers, and we will continue to do so.

G20 and Leadership of EU Institutions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously it is up to whoever succeeds me to take forward negotiations and look at the relationship for withdrawing from the European Union and our future relationship with the European Union in the way that they think fit. The EU Council has made statements about the negotiations so far and about its position on those negotiations, but obviously it will be up to my successor to take those forward.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Did my right hon. Friend have the opportunity to discuss with Secretary-General Guterres or other G20 leaders the troubling reports surrounding the alleged torture and death of the navy captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo in Venezuela? If there is evidence of torture and human rights abuses by Maduro and his henchmen, will she press for them to be held to account by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights or, if appropriate, referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague?

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise the concern that my right hon. Friend has expressed in relation to this case. I was able on a number of occasions to raise the overall issue of Venezuela; I was recently also able to discuss it with the President of Colombia when he visited the United Kingdom. We are all concerned about the state that we see in Venezuela, about actions that have been taken in that country, and about the appalling circumstances and conditions in which so many Venezuelans find themselves living, which is why so many Venezuelans have been fleeing their country to neighbouring countries, putting a significant burden on those neighbouring countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

Of course, all our work is designed to achieve the sustainable development goals, so sustainability is crucial. Tearfund has done some amazing projects, and I am delighted today that we are announcing that we will match fund a WasteAid project in Cameroon that will help with exactly what my hon. Friend refers to—people earning a living from cleaning up plastic and stopping it going into our oceans.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

7. What proportion of contracts her Department has awarded to UK companies in each of the past five years.

[The Minister for Africa (Harriett Baldwin)]

DFID has awarded more than 80% of its contracts to UK-registered companies in each of the last five years.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

One of the achievements this Conservative party can be most proud of is its aid budget and the fact last year Britain was the only member of the G7 to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid—an astonishing £13.9 billion. Of course, this attracts criticism in some quarters. Does the Minister agree that one way to negate some of the criticism of the perceived largesse of taxpayer money would be to encourage proactively more British companies to win some of those contracts, without of course contravening state aid rules?

[Harriett Baldwin]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this point. In fact, I think we are the only country in the world to have put that 0.7% figure into statute. He will see from the numbers that in open competition 80% of our contracts have been awarded to UK-registered firms, but of course we would like to see more and smaller companies, and our procurement team has been out on a range of regional tours across this land to encourage more people to bid for our contracts.