Panama Papers

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course there is bad practice, not least in some of these jurisdictions, and that needs to be dealt with. That is what tax transparency, the sharing of information, the registers of beneficial ownership and all the rest of it are about. The other thing to recognise that happened last week is that the £11,000 personal allowance came in, so people can now earn £11,000 before having to pay any income tax at all. That completed our work of taking 4 million of the lowest paid people in our country out of income tax altogether.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

The Prime Minister has paid his taxes and behaved perfectly properly, and I commend him for standing up to those who have sought to besmirch his father’s reputation and memory. Will he remind us how much extra money has come into the Exchequer as a result of his Government’s closing the loopholes that were set up under 13 years of Labour government?

[The Prime Minister]

The point is that we raised an extra £12 billion in the last Parliament, and we want to raise another £16 billion in this Parliament, stretching out to 2021 the figures that I gave. Also, by having a lower rate of corporation tax, we have actually seen more corporation tax come in. Low tax rates, but tax rates that people pay—those are our watch words.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Those decisions must be made by local authorities in the proper way, under the planning regime we have. Personally, I hope that, over time, unconventional gas sites will go ahead, whether in Lancashire or elsewhere, because I want our country to exploit all the natural resources we have. I want us to keep energy bills down and I want us to be part of that revolution, which can create thousands of jobs. I also want to ensure that we can exploit our own gas reserves rather than ship gas from the other side of the world, which has a higher carbon footprint. We should do that, but if the Labour party wants to paint itself into a background of not wanting any unconventional gas at all, it should say so.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Q9. Labour-controlled Reading Borough Council recently received a damning report from Ofsted for not doing enough to help struggling schools under its control. Will the Prime Minister tell us what the Government intend to do to ensure that systemically failing local education authorities such as Reading do not continue to ruin the life chances of our young people?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. Frankly, one extra term in a failing school is too long for our children. In the past, Governments and LEAs have been too tolerant in allowing schools to continue to fail year after year, so this Government have set a very testing regime for failing schools and for those that are inadequate. As my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary set out this week, we will do similar things to schools that we would define as coasting and that could be doing better. We can now see the model of academy chains taking over a failing school, changing some of the leadership and putting in place the things that are necessary. We can see radical increases in the results, which is what we want. We will today talk about how we tackle poverty in the long term. Tackling sink schools and educational underachievement is vital to the life chances of our children.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely spot on with that point. There are a number of things that we need to do. First of all is action at the UN, which has now been taken, to cut off the financial flows to ISIL. We need to take action to tell the world that ISIL, supposedly the enemy of Assad, is actually selling oil to Assad and making millions of pounds from it. American air strikes have already dealt with some of the so-called mobile oil refineries that ISIL has been using to raise funds, but clearly more needs to be done to persuade those who may have backed organisations such as ISIL in the past, because they were seen as Sunni Arab organisations, that they made a terrible mistake and should not do it again. That was very much what was being discussed around the table at the UN Security Council and is an issue that I would support.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for giving way. I was going to make a point about ensuring that we can cut off funding to ISIL, but will he expand a little more on that in terms of what is going on with international pressure to ensure that ISIL’s funding is squeezed? At the end of the day, it is currently a well-funded organisation and squeezing its funding will ensure that it cannot operate in the way that it has been up until now.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. Part of the reason why ISIL has got hold of so much funding is because it has the oil and also simply took money out of banks in some of the towns it took in northern Iraq. A long-term squeeze must be applied in this case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Parts of my constituency are suffering from flooding. I want to put on record my thanks to the council officers from West Berkshire council and Reading borough council, the volunteer flood wardens in places such as Purley and the soldiers of the 7th Battalion the Rifles for the work they are doing to help my constituents. I welcome the schemes the Prime Minister has talked about to help individuals and businesses. Will he ensure that the details of those schemes are made available to everyone affected, so that they can make use of them?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I know that he is working very hard to bring people together in his own constituency to make sure that everything that can be done in Reading is done. Obviously, they will be concerned about the rise in the Thames. We will publish details of all the announcements I have made, and we will add into that the fact that the major banks are coming forward with more than £750 million of financial support, which will mean repayment holidays, reduced or waived fees, loan extensions, increased flexibility of terms and specialist support teams deployed on the ground for businesses and farmers who desperately need help. It is a time for our insurance companies and our banks to demonstrate real social responsibility. I believe that they are beginning to do that and we should encourage them to do so.

G8 and NATO Summits

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

When I went to Nigeria and met the UK Trade & Investment team in Lagos, I was hugely impressed by its work and its dedication, and also by the incredible links between British Nigerians and Nigerian British, as it were, working between the two countries. We work very closely with the Nigerian Government on security, because there are considerable security challenges, particularly in the north of the country. Security training and counter-terrorism co-operation between the UK and Nigeria can help produce major dividends both for that country and for trade and investment.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Given that increasing exports to emerging economies needs to be a key part of the growth strategy of many of the G8 nations, will the Prime Minister update us on any discussions he has had with other European leaders on progress on the pending free trade agreement between the EU and India?

[The Prime Minister]

We had a number of discussions about the free trade agreements. There is a series of such agreements: the Indian one; the Canadian one; the chance of getting one going with Japan. My view is that all of them are good news. The Korean one has been a success, and we need to drive them all forward—and we are certainly in the vanguard of doing that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The fact is that the percentage of officers on the front line has actually increased. We inherited a situation where there were 6,000 uniformed officers performing back-office roles in the police. We have had to make difficult spending reductions, but I think that if the hon. Gentleman listens to his Front Benchers, he will now find out that they support the cuts, and they support the pay freeze. They even support our police commissioners so strongly that droves of Labour MPs are going to quit to try to become them.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Q2. Tonight, the House will have a historic vote on whether households on benefits should be able to receive more than households in work. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that the introduction of a benefits cap should have the support of the whole House?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The cap is right, and the cap is fair. It is right to say that you should not get more than £26,000 a year in benefits—that is £500 a week—and it is fair because we are introducing a new principle into our welfare system: an able-bodied family who can work should not get more in benefits than the average family gets from work. The leader of the Labour party has said that he is not against a cap in principle; tonight we will find out whether he is in favour of a cap in practice.

Libya

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am delighted to do that. As I say, the Tornado performed magnificently in the skies above Libya, but the Typhoon did, too. That is a tribute to the pilots, the ground staff and ground crew, but also to all those involved in manufacturing and maintaining that aircraft. Touching the wood of the Dispatch Box, I think that those airplanes and their crews have performed very well.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I too congratulate the Prime Minister on leading the international effort in Libya. May I say that it is rather refreshing finally to have a Prime Minister who leads from the front? Will he give us a few more details on the humanitarian aid that Britain and the international community are providing and are planning to provide, which will be incredibly important in the days, weeks and months ahead?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to do that. We have helped through the ICRC to provide medical assistance to 5,000 people. We have provided food for, I believe, around 700,000 people. We are working with others to provide water as well. On the humanitarian situation, we have always been ready to do more. The planning carried out by the Department for International Development has been first class. The needs have not always been as great as predicted, because the Libyans have themselves responded relatively rapidly to deal with shortages and problems.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are deeply involved in seeking a successful outcome to this process: we fund a lot of the African Union talks process that has been ongoing, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has visited the country, as has the Africa Minister. Britain has done a huge amount to try to make sure the comprehensive peace agreement is fully implemented and there is a peaceful settlement between the two countries. Clearly there is a lot more work to do however, and, yes, I keep a personal perspective on this issue as well.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

What does the Prime Minister think is more fair and progressive: the coalition Government’s policy of safeguarding defined benefit pension schemes in the public sector, or Labour’s £100-billion smash and grab on private pension funds, which directly contributed to the demise of defined benefit schemes in the private sector?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and I note that we are 26 minutes into Question Time yet we have not heard a squeak from Labour Members about strikes, pensions or the need for reform. Because they are all paid for by the trade unions, they cannot talk about this issue. What the coalition Government are doing is right, because we are saying that we want to have a defined benefit system in the public sector. We want to make sure all those accrued rights are kept, and people will still be able to take those accrued rights at the age they were originally allowed to take them. Just to put this beyond doubt, when people who are currently in a final salary scheme get the accrued benefits, they will be based on their final salary; not their final salary now or when the reforms go through, but the final salary when they retire. As so much myth and misinformation has been put around by some in the trade unions, it is important to put that on the record here in the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think that Parliament as a whole will be increased in terms of authority and respect. It is right to insert into the House of Lords some elected peers, so that we recognise that in the modern world, it is right to have two Chambers that are predominantly elected. That is the policy of the Government. It is clear to me that there are massive divisions on both sides of the House about that policy. However, this is an opportunity for the House of Commons to try to find a path through those, which we must do to achieve what was in every manifesto: elections to the House of Lords.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Q15. An independent investigation is due to report on allegations that Reading borough council, when last under Labour control, diverted section 106 moneys to plug gaps in the general budget, and also to fund unrelated projects. Can the Prime Minister offer any advice on how residents can make use of the Localism Bill to ensure that section 106 money is spent correctly?

[The Prime Minister]

I would make two points to my hon. Friend. First, the Localism Bill gives local people a greater ability to influence what happens to section 106 money. Secondly, because of the new homes bonus, councils that go ahead with building homes will get more money, so they need not feel that they must go for one huge development in order to draw in the section 106 money. It could be that a different pattern of development—one more in tune with what local people want—would deliver some of the benefits that local people want to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alok Sharma and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make is that the CBI says very clearly that it is absolutely essential that we get to grips with the deficit. What it said at the time of Labour’s last Budget was that there was not a credible plan; it believes that there now is a credible plan. This is not going to be easy. The Labour party is committed to cuts from April this year. This will not be easy, but it has to be done.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Q3. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that has been running Reading borough council since last May has uncovered the fact that over the past 12 years the previous Labour administration spent £1.4 million of taxpayers’ money funding the salaries of three full-time union officials. Does the Prime Minister agree that that is an inappropriate use of taxpayers’ money and that full-time union officials should be paid for by union subscriptions?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It seems that in local government the Labour politicians pay the unions, whereas in national politics the unions pay for the Labour politicians. It is nice work if you can get it.