Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Is not the greatest threat of uncertainty to the Scottish economy the prospect of a second independence referendum?

[John Glen]

Absolutely. Another divisive referendum within 18 months would be completely contrary to what the First Minister said five years ago, which was that it was a “once in a generation” event. It would absolutely be a real crisis for Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

As my hon. Friend knows through his excellent work with the dispute resolution service, there are some avenues for businesses to go down. Many—virtually all—lenders have now signed up to the standards of lending practice, and that, alongside the expansion of the Financial Ombudsman Service’s jurisdiction, gives businesses the assurance they need.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to improve the performance of the financial services sector.

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

UK financial services are globally competitive, and this Government are focused on maintaining that competitiveness. Leaving the EU with a deal will ensure that financial services businesses can continue to operate across borders into the EU. Through our global financial partnerships initiative, we will also build a new framework for rest-of-the-world cross-border financial services.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

How will we ensure that those businesses do not end up being regulated from overseas?

[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.

Business Rates

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that thoughtful intervention, and I want to reassure him and the Minister that I have not called this debate to criticise the Government. I called it to come up with some helpful and positive suggestions for how we might reform system, wholesale or otherwise, while bearing it in mind that we need to raise that £30 billion. Clearly, the Treasury cannot afford any reduction in that amount.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Is the fundamental problem one of the taxation system or the nature of retail and our changing tastes? In my view, the rating system does not help—it sets high streets at a disadvantage—but fundamentally people have changed the way they shop, and retail has to respond with a better offer and experience.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, and I have a section in my speech about the changing circumstances of big online companies vis-à-vis the rating system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

The Ministry of Justice is looking at that, and will present its response to the call for evidence later this year.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

May I suggest that the answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is £185 billion?

[John Glen]

I always take my right hon. Friend’s words very seriously, and I am sure that he must be right.

Leaving the EU: Economic Impact of Proposed Deal

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I think the right hon. Gentleman’s question would be most appropriately directed to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy as to the specifics of the companies that he listed. Honda, a company that has already been mentioned in this respect, has made it clear that its decision to leave the United Kingdom is not a consequence of Brexit; it is more to do with international changes around cars and the position of diesel, and of course the deal that Japan has struck on zero tariffs in a few years’ time for exports from Japan to the European Union.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What would be the economic impact of membership of a customs union where access to our market was conceded to a third party without any reciprocal arrangement of our access to theirs?

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend asks a specific, interesting question, which prompts many other questions on exactly the form of the model that he is postulating. The important thing, when it comes to access to our markets in future, is that we have a tariff policy that protects domestic producers in our economy where they require protection, and ensures that our trade remedy regime is robust, so that we can prevent the dumping of products into the UK market, and also is sufficiently liberalised such that the cost savings that would accrue from liberalised tariffs are there for the benefit both of consumers and those who use those products in their production processes within the UK market.

Equitable Life

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), to whom the House owes an enormous debt for the amount of time, effort and initiative that they have put into raising the profile of this important issue.

Ever since I have been in this House, I have experienced legislation after legislation and Government initiative after Government initiative to try to deal with the enormous implications of the problem we face as we spend an increasing amount of our lives in retirement. We cannot expect people to rely on the basic state pension. It was never designed to provide people with the level of comfort to which they had grown accustomed during their working lives. It was introduced to prevent people from falling into poverty, not to provide them with comfort. It was introduced to keep the wolf from the door. Notwithstanding the huge improvements that we have made, such as the legislative changes with respect to women’s entitlement and the operation of the triple lock, people imagine that they have paid for their state pension, but they have not. They have paid for those who are retired now, as they expect this inter- generational contract to proceed and that others will pay for them.

However, as the working population shrinks relative to the retired population, people must make savings for their retirement. We have this enormous task of public policy to get that message across to people and, hey, pensions are complicated and people have busy lives. They have children at school, mortgages to pay and job worries. Pensions are a low priority for them. I never cease to be amazed at the level of public ignorance and, indeed, indifference to knowledge about pensions—even in this House. Mr Deputy Speaker, you may be aware that the House authorities are providing seminars for Members who are approaching retirement, at which they suddenly discover the implications of the lifetime savings limit, something which you would have expected them to wrestle with since most of them will have voted for those changes in a Finance Bill in the last Parliament. Even Members are not immune from this.

We must deal with public indifference and ignorance, but we have added a further toxic element to that mix: hostility to pension savings. We have somehow let it get abroad that pensions are a mug’s game, that people who do the right thing and follow the exhortations to save actually end up, either through malice or through incompetence, having those savings stolen from them. Such is the case with Equitable Life.

These were overwhelmingly people of modest means. Many of them were employed in the public sector, where the scheme was widely advertised, so much so that they thought it was somehow publicly sanctioned. What happened, as has been described, was disgraceful. There was a measure of public culpability. The Treasury was aware of what was going on at Equitable Life, and therefore something must be done to compensate these people.

Ministers can be proud of the fact that, when they came to power in 2010 and sought to address this issue at a time when the public finances were under such pressure, they maintained it as a priority. Let us be honest that previously, when money was easy, nothing had been done. However, that was then and this is now, and it cannot go away—22.4% is not a settlement that can address the needs of those who are required to be compensated. We need to get the message out there that people will be protected if they do the right thing and save.

I have heard it said that Ministers sometimes ask whether, if they had a couple of billion to spend, this would be the way to spend it, given all the demands on the public purse. Yes, it would be. First, because of the public policy priority to which I have drawn attention and, secondly, because this is a matter of moral rectitude. If Ministers think it will go away and they can close the book, they should just look at the disproportionate number of the new 2017 intake who have joined this all-party group. It will not go away until there is justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

If we are going to trade statistics, at the end of the last Labour Government, 20% of young people were unemployed and 1.4 million people were on welfare and left on the scrapheap. We have record employment and the lowest unemployment since the mid-1970s. The way we are going to solve the issue of poverty is to help people get on, help people get into work and get our education levels up.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

10. What recent contingency plans he has made to prepare for the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

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

Leaving the EU with a deal remains the Government’s top priority, but as a responsible Government we are, of course, also making preparations to ensure that the country is ready for every eventuality across all sectors of the economy. I have made substantial funding available to prepare for the UK’s exit from the EU in all scenarios. HMRC has written on no-deal preparations to 145,000 EU-only traders, and the Government have produced a partner pack to support stakeholders in preparing for a no-deal scenario.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

And worth every penny, isn’t it? How much in total is the Chancellor spending on delivering the people’s decision?

[Mr Hammond]

Let me put it this way: since 2016 I have made more than £4.2 billion available for EU exit planning, and funding for the 2019-20 financial year has now been allocated to Departments. That is funding to prepare the Government for leaving the EU in any scenario. In addition, I have made arrangements to ensure that Departments and the devolved Administrations can fund measures to address urgent civil contingencies in a no-deal scenario.

ONS Decisions: Student Loans

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Perhaps the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) can offer us a reprise of his masterclass on brevity.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Given the provenance of this accounting rule, why did the ONS not get on to it earlier?

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is a matter for the ONS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. The automotive issue is related to other factors, including diesel. The Government are focused on investing in infrastructure in the north-east. I think that she would be very pleased to know that since 2010, we have had 66,000 new jobs in the north-east as a consequence of more business growth.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I can introduce my hon. Friend to manufacturers who find it significantly easier to export to the rest of the world than to the EU. Is there a lesson in that?

[John Glen]

I think my right hon. Friend is right to say that the Treasury is looking at growth opportunities across the whole world, and that is why the Chancellor set out in his Mansion House speech the aspiration to have global financial partnerships that make the best of those opportunities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have consulted on APD and VAT on tourism in Northern Ireland, and we have now reported back on that consultation. We are setting up a technical working group to look specifically at the issue of short-haul APD to see whether there is some way in which that could be addressed.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Even before that great day, what reassurance can the Minister give to those of us who hold on to the quaint belief that Budgets should balance?

[Mel Stride]

We take a very balanced approach to the economy, which of course includes ensuring that we stick rigorously to our fiscal rules. We have met the two intermediate rules a full three years early. We continue to bear down on the deficit, and debt as a percentage of GDP will continue to fall throughout every year of this Parliament.