Sue Gray Report

Debate between Drew Hendry and Boris Johnson

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No. The hon. Gentleman is totally prejudging the whole thing. He needs to contain himself and wait for the police to complete their inquiries.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The Sue Gray update is not the report that this House deserves and it is not the transparency that the public were expecting, but it does make it very clear that there were “failures of leadership” at No. 10. The Prime Minister is the leader at No. 10, so will he now pack his suitcase, or will he leave it to his officials to carry his cans?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman just needs to look at the report again and to wait for the conclusion of the inquiry.

Health and Social Care

Debate between Drew Hendry and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We looked at all those models of course, Mr Speaker, as you can imagine. I think that the problem is that we need to go for an insurance system that works and has a genuine chance of being set up, and the only way of encouraging the financial services industry to come in and offer products, whether they are insurance or annuities or whatever, is to take away that risk of catastrophic cost. That is a very substantial risk for too many people and it means that the insurance market has not been able to develop. We believe that this is the best way forward for the country.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) referred to comments by IFS director Paul Johnson earlier, but Paul Johnson has also said he is

“bemused as to why such a bad tax policy instrument has to be used”,

and pointed out that the under-50s would pay two thirds of the costs of social care if they paid through NI. Prime Minister, that means young people and the lowest-paid bearing the brunt. Many of these are also working with universal credit—people in Scotland paying that and elsewhere. Does he think it is fair to progress this while also cutting the £20 a week from hard-pressed families on universal credit?

[The Prime Minister]

No, because obviously older people continue to pay the levy and the richest 14% pay half the cost of this transformation, and that is entirely the right thing to do.

Covid-19: Road Map

Debate between Drew Hendry and Boris Johnson

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, we must encourage everybody to take the vaccine, which is a wonderful thing. One of the problems is that, at the moment, we are not, as my hon. Friend knows, vaccinating children—children are not approved for the vaccine, although they are possible vectors of the disease. As he knows, there are also people who are vulnerable to the disease, even though they may have been vaccinated—there will be at least a percentage—so we have to make sure we proceed with caution and in a way that means we do not have to go back.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]]

Do the Prime Minister and his Government intend to do anything at all for the 3 million or so people who have been excluded from financial support since the start of this pandemic?

[The Prime Minister]

We have provided about £15 billion for the self-employed and will continue to look after them in any way we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Drew Hendry and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud that the UK led the way in instituting a target of net zero by 2050; of all the developed nations, we were the first. We are looking at our nationally determined contribution, which will be extremely ambitious and will be published around the time of the climate summit on 12 December this year.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]]

The Prime Minister mentioned universal credit earlier. His and the Chancellor’s decision to increase UC by £20 a week during the pandemic was an admission of what my constituents have known for years: UC simply is not enough to live on. In January, his Government will cap the benefits of thousands of UC claimants; the average losses will be £250 a month, mainly to families with children. He already knows that UC is not enough to live on, so will he now commit to scrap the cap and guarantee to continue the £20 a week uplift? Or is he going to throw these families to the wolves, too, just like the 3 million excluded?

[The Prime Minister]

I just repeat the point I made earlier about the huge sums the Government have invested in looking after families’ lives and livelihoods across the whole of the UK—this is well north of £200 billion now. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, there has been a UC uplift of £1,000. We will continue to support families across this country throughout the pandemic, but the objective must be, as I hope he would agree, to get the economy moving again and get people back into work in the way that everybody would want. It is a fact that under this Government, despite all the difficulties we have faced, the unemployment rate is lower than that in France, Spain, Italy, Canada and the United States. We will continue to work to look after every job that we can.

Public Health

Debate between Drew Hendry and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The economic dimension of what we are doing is absolutely right and the argument, as my hon. Friend rightly says, works both ways. I know how difficult it is, particularly for businesses that have just got back on their feet, that have done their level best to make themselves covid-secure, installing hand- washing stations, plexiglass screens and one-way systems, and, as the Chancellor has set out, we will do whatever it takes to support them. We have protected almost 10 million jobs with furlough and we are now extending the scheme throughout November. We have already paid out £13 billion to help support the self-employed, and we are now doubling our support from 40% to 80% of trading profits for the self-employed for this month. We are providing cash grants of up to £3,000 per month for businesses that are closed, which is worth more than £1 billion a month and benefits more than 600,000 business premises. We are giving funding of £1.1 billion to local authorities in England further to support businesses in their local economy in the winter months.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister accused us earlier of not being able to take yes for an answer on differentiated furlough for the other nations of the UK. The problem is that we have not heard a clear, unequivocal yes to the question, so can he sort that out now? If Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland need to introduce lockdown measures at different times than England, will the Chancellor be there to support us with furlough?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I really do not know how to exhaust my affirmative vocabulary any further—they won’t take yes for an answer, Mr Speaker. All of this comes on top, as the hon. Gentleman knows—

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Drew Hendry and Boris Johnson

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We keep all these things under constant review, and nothing could be more attractive to the Government than moving the whole country out of the present restrictions that we are in as fast as possible. That requires us all to follow the guidance.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]]

The Prime Minister just said that he wants to put his arms around every worker in the country, but that will sound pretty hollow to those people left alone and abandoned, who have been excluded from any covid support from this Government. They now face a £20-a-week reduction in their universal credit, so will he answer the question that I am asked by my increasingly desperate constituents every day? How are they to pay their bills?

[The Prime Minister]

Don’t forget that this Government have increased universal credit by about £7 billion, perhaps £9 billion—£1,000 a year—and the uplift will remain in place for this financial year, as I told the House earlier.

Covid-19: Strategy

Debate between Drew Hendry and Boris Johnson

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I congratulate him, by the way, on the birth of his daughter, Persephone—an appropriate names, perhaps, for a country beginning to take steps out from the darkness. As we take these steps, we will of course be flexible. As I said just now to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), we will make sure that, where there are local flare-ups, where we see the disease taking off again, we will not hesitate to put on the brakes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, however, that to have a strong NHS, as we must, we do and we will, we need a strong economy as well.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]]

Reports in the press say that the Prime Minister’s Government are preparing to cut the rate of support under the furlough scheme by a quarter. Can he assure us that this is not the case and that his advice for people to return to work is not an excuse for reduced spending on public health?

[The Prime Minister]

I have. I have considerable respect for the press, but I would advise the hon. Member not to believe everything he reads about that matter until he has heard from the Chancellor, who, as I say, will be speaking to the House tomorrow about it.