Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts
Tuesday 24th June 2014

(10 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Gauke Portrait The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
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HMRC is increasingly successful in bringing in its yield. It has to develop the most effective ways of working, and if it can find more efficient ways of doing so, that is fine. The important point is that HMRC is bringing in more money than it has ever done before.

Baroness Bray of Coln Portrait Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer will recall that we met a group of McDonald’s apprentices and an Ealing McDonald’s franchise owner, Atul Pathak, last week to celebrate the announcement by McDonald’s of 8,000 new apprenticeships across the UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s initiative on supporting apprenticeships has been one of our great success stories—good for the economy and good for youth unemployment?

George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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We had a fantastic meeting with McDonald’s employees, at which my hon. Friend was present, and it was heartening to hear about their confidence in their economic future. It is remarkable that we have had an hour of Treasury questions, during which we have discussed youth unemployment, and there were Department for Work and Pensions questions yesterday, but not a single Labour MP has mentioned the welfare plan that their leader published last week. That shows why the Labour economic policy lacks credibility even with Labour MPs and why the Labour leadership is in crisis.