Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Raab and Ed Davey

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend. Of course, she will know that, as Foreign Secretary, I have been working flat out with the Foreign Office and our international network on that. It is worth saying that we have worked with foreign Governments and the airlines to return those stranded, and we have returned over 1 million British nationals on commercial flights. I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that the scale of that operation is incredible and unprecedented. We have also introduced a special charter arrangement: we have put in £75 million and have a whole range of international or UK airlines signed up to it, and we have returned over 10,000 on charter flights. In fact, in the last few weeks, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has chartered 52 flights to get more than 10,000 people back from 16 different countries, including nearly 5,000 from India, which she has mentioned. We have confirmed further flights from several countries in the next few days, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD) [V]]

In an answer to the Leader of the Opposition, the Foreign Secretary mentioned a consultant who died at Kingston Hospital, my local hospital. That consultant’s name was Anton Sebastianpillai. Anton came to the UK after qualifying as a doctor in Sri Lanka in 1967. Anton worked in our NHS for decades, and he was treating coronavirus patients when he caught the disease and, sadly, died. He was the best of us. On behalf of Anton and the other brave NHS and careworkers who made the ultimate sacrifice for others, and so that we learn the lessons urgently ahead of a future pandemic, will the Government commit now to a future independent, judge-led inquiry into how this crisis has been handled?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and join him in paying tribute to Dr Anton Sebastianpillai. I know at first hand—I have been into Kingston Hospital; my boys were born there and I have been treated there—the incredible work they do there. It is my local hospital too, so I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to what they have done.

I have to say that I will not take up the right hon. Gentleman’s offer of committing to a public inquiry. There are definitely lessons to be learnt, and when we get through this crisis it will be important that we take stock and come together to understand, with such an unprecedented challenge on an international scale, what can be done to avoid it happening again. Right now, as we come through the peak of the virus, from our key NHS frontline workers to members of the public, people would rightly expect our full focus to be on making sure that we save lives, protect the NHS and steer the whole country through this crisis, rather than engaging in that process and that set of deliberations right now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Raab and Ed Davey

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

May I gently suggest that the hon. Gentleman does not engage in such scaremongering? I have been talking to practitioners, legal groups and the judiciary. We have set out our plans in our position paper, and I would have thought that he would welcome that. Through the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, which I hope he will support, we will make sure that we have a smooth legal transition.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Will the Minister confirm to the House that it is his policy that the European Court of Human Rights will still have jurisdiction over Britain after we leave the EU?

[Dominic Raab]

The right hon. Gentleman will know, because it was in our manifesto and it has been repeated since, that we have no plans to withdraw from the European convention on human rights or the Strasbourg Court.

Cost of Living: Energy and Housing

Debate between Dominic Raab and Ed Davey

Thursday 5th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

Many commentators thought we should cut the deficit faster, but we have taken a very responsible approach, to ensure not only that interest rates were kept low—that has been so vital for many families and the hon. Lady’s constituents—but that employment has risen so well. I would have thought she would be welcoming that.

The problem is that the Opposition used to criticise the coalition on unemployment—they used to say that unemployment was going to go up—but when the facts showed they were wrong and that unemployment has gone down they have had to change their economic argument. The Opposition keep changing the economic argument because they keep losing the economic argument. Let us examine their recent economic argument on the cost of living. I presume that everyone in this House accepts that the key measure of the cost of living remains the inflation figures. So if the cost of living is the measure by which to judge this coalition, let us see what has been happening to inflation. Inflation is lower than when the previous Government left office and it is falling.

I have to confess to the House that the Bank of England’s inflation target is not being hit—inflation is lower than the target. In March, inflation had slowed to just 1.6%. Of course for our constituents it is real incomes and real wages that actually matter: what people have to spend after tax and after inflation. Looking at things in that way, it is true that after the 2008 recession many people saw living standards fall. But let us remind ourselves what happened: a huge £113 billion was wiped off our economy in the great financial crash of 2008, and there was a £3,000 cost to every household in the United Kingdom. To put that right, and to keep employment rising, it was arithmetically inevitable that living standards could not rise in the turnaround period for our economy, but now we really are in recovery. Now it is not just employment that is rising—it is living standards too. How has that happened? Of course, it has been because of the coalition’s long-term economic plan.

Key aspects of that plan are really beginning to help, above all the implementation of the Liberal Democrat manifesto policy to increase the tax-free allowance to £10,000 a year. Our record not just of implementing this fairest of tax cuts, but doing more than we promised is helping more than 26 million people. It has taken 3.2 million low paid out of income tax and it has cut the income tax bill of a double-earning couple on average earnings by £1,600 a year. This Liberal-Democrat-turned-coalition policy has cut the number of low-income people paying income tax more in five years than any other Government have achieved in the same period since records began.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Before the Secretary of State diverts on to a partisan frolic, may I ask whether he welcomes the British Retail Consortium’s data out this week showing that competition between supermarkets has led to a decline in non-food prices of 2.8%? Does he also welcome the fact that food inflation is at 0.7%, its lowest level since 2006?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point: competition, not Government intervention, is the best way of getting prices down and helping people with their living standards.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Raab and Ed Davey

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I have not seen the research to which the hon. Lady refers. Given that we have introduced the warm home discount, which targets some of the poorest households in our country, taking £130 directly off their bills, I would be surprised by such findings. I reassure her and the House that the Government are not complacent on the challenge of fuel poverty. We know we need to do as much as possible, which is why we commissioned Professor Hills, why we consulted on many of his proposals, and why we will respond. We will shortly produce a framework on fuel poverty and produce a strategy by the end of the year. The Government believe that that should be a high priority.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

T7. When will the British Geological Survey review of shale gas reserves be published? Given that IGas recently found that there are 20 times the previous estimates of reserves, does the Minister agree that shale represents a major strategic advantage for Britain, in meeting energy demand and decarbonisation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Raab and Ed Davey

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What steps he is taking to help households with their energy bills.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

We have a range of initiatives to help people with their energy bills, including tariff reforms, energy saving programmes, and additional help for those on the lowest incomes. From our proposals to help get consumers on the cheapest tariffs to the green deal, from the warm home discount to our promotion of collective switching, this Government are working to help people keep their energy bills down.

[Mr Raab]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. However, supply is also crucial. Ofgem forecasts that UK spare electricity capacity will slump to 4% by 2015, and that highlights the acute need to get more nuclear power on stream. May I urge him to strain every sinew to finalise the right deal with EDF to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point?

[Mr Davey]

I assure my hon. Friend that we are straining every sinew in the negotiations with EDF. He will recognise that I cannot be more explicit than that given that they are commercial negotiations. I will say, though, that we take energy security very seriously and listen to Ofgem, National Grid and others. However, we do not imagine that new nuclear power will assist in the rest of this decade, because new nuclear power stations take such a long time to build.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Raab and Ed Davey

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to reduce consumers’ energy bills.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

We have a range of initiatives to help people with their energy bills, including tariff reforms, energy saving programmes and additional help for those on the lowest incomes. From our proposals to help get consumers on to the cheapest tariffs to the green deal, and from the warm home discount to our promotion of collective switching, this Government are working hard to help people to keep their energy bills down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. While the carbon emissions reduction target had its successes, more than 300 million light bulbs were provided in the early years of the scheme and we estimate that approximately a third of them are still lying unused in cupboards. There was no doubt that we needed to reform the CERT. She is absolutely right to say that the ECO is a much better scheme. As the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) said, it is already under way and having a real effect in bringing help to people.

[Mr Raab]

uSwitch proposed an industry-designed web service to facilitate groups switching between energy suppliers, helping consumers get a better deal on their bills. Will the Secretary of State consider supporting incentivising companies to sign up and provide portable billing data by offering a temporary tax break to help cover the costs?

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question and I will certainly look into that idea, but can I just tell him how many things the Government are doing to support switching, not least our support for collective switching? One of the advantages of collective switching is that it can get even better deals for people than the normal switching we have seen in the past. It can also reach out to the most vulnerable and to the people on the lowest incomes. That is why the only criterion for our competition, Cheaper Energy Together, which this year will see 94 councils involved in collective switching schemes, was that the fuel poor should be involved.