Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has been discussing that with G7 Finance Ministers. We are doing all we can to support Ukraine, enabling it to have the finances that it needs both to resist Russian aggression and also, eventually, to be able to rebuild its country after this horrendous invasion.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), who asked the first question on this. Like all bullies, Vladimir Putin demonstrates horrific patterns of behaviour. He helped to starve Syrians in Aleppo and elsewhere, and now he is obliterating Ukrainian cities. But do we not also have to look at our own patterns of behaviour? I see the same administrative failures that hampered our response to Syrian refugees now limiting that desire that the British public have to help Ukrainian refugees. That administrative incompetence is harming our approach. What consideration has the Foreign Secretary made of the effect of the Home Office’s inadequacies on Foreign Office objectives?

Japan Free Trade Agreement

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I understand that the deal will go to both Parliaments at the same time—it will go to the Japanese Diet at the same time as it goes to the International Trade Committee in this House for its analysis. As I have said, under the CRaG process, which was introduced by the Labour Government in 2010, Parliament can block the deal if it does not like it, and that process is roughly equivalent to those in other Parliaments, including in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I note what the Secretary of State said about impact assessments, but what discussions has she had with the Office for Budget Responsibility about whether it will produce a forecast of the impact of the deal, specifically comparing it with WTO trading conditions and what would have happened if we had just rolled over the EU-Japan deal?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am committed to making sure that we have independently audited analysis of the deal that we complete, but the hon. Lady has highlighted a hypothetical situation. We are now in a world where we have left the EU, even though some Opposition Members do not seem to want to acknowledge that. What we have to talk about is the benefits of signing the deal versus not signing it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is because of our welfare reforms and economic policy that more people are now in work and are benefiting from our cuts to basic rate tax, giving working families £1,200 a year extra in their pay packets.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Chancellor has been brave recently, speaking out on how no deal will impact our economy. Poverty will only get worse if we face no deal, so will the Chief Secretary be as brave as the Chancellor and tell this House the truth about poverty and no deal?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

As my hon. Friend knows, the advice of the Labour party is that we need to “overthrow capitalism”. If we were to do that, there would be fewer businesses, fewer jobs, higher taxes and higher mortgage rates—and we would all be queuing for food, as people are in Venezuela.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Families with three children are at a greater risk of poverty than other families, and next year the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will take £1.2 billion away from them. Does she agree that this is the least family-friendly Government in history?

[Elizabeth Truss]

What we have done for families is make sure that more parents and families are in work than ever before, enabling them to look after and support their children. We are also investing a record amount in childcare—£6 billion a year—to help more parents into work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

As the Labour party admits, cancelling student debt would cost £100 billion. The Opposition made that reckless promise, which would see the debt soar, during the election campaign, but now they say it is just an “ambition”. Are they going to say sorry to the people they made their promise to, and are they going to say sorry to the British public for threatening to bankrupt the economy?

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Further to the questions asked by my hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), will the Chancellor confirm, as he failed to do before, that the cost to us of Brexit will be as described by my hon. Friends some moments ago?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we need to grow more, buy more and sell more British food. We produce fantastic food in this country. At the moment, for example, we are importing two third of our cheese. There is more we can do to encourage investment in the dairy industry and we have a massive opportunity with exports. By 2018, China will be the world’s biggest food importer, and we have just put in place a food and agriculture counsellor in China to promote that fantastic British produce.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

12. What steps he is taking to reduce levels of air pollution in towns and cities.

Child-care Ratios

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Many childminders—I recently held a round table meeting with them—told me that they welcome the additional flexibility that they will have under our rules. They also welcome the increased level of trust that we are placing in child care professionals. Rather than dictating from Whitehall what they should be doing, we have a strong inspection regime, we are recruiting new Her Majesty’s inspectors into the sector and we are giving more professional responsibility to people on the ground.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I have been struck by the number of people in my constituency raising with me their concerns about these proposals. They are concerned that they are rushed and ill thought through. Will the Minister apologise for the manner in which this proposal has been debated in the country, and will she commit to listen properly to people like my mum who have spent their lives in child care?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Our policy is all about giving the hon. Lady’s mum more say over how she runs her own child care. It is a very important principle that no nursery care assistant or childminder is going to be forced to look after more children. What we are doing is allowing them to exercise professional responsibility. We are also doing something about the exorbitant costs that Labour created in our child care system. How on earth can Labour Members be proud of a record of having the highest child care costs in Europe?

Jobs and the Unemployed

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Alison McGovern

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I would. That is not to say that everything spent by RDAs was wrong. There have been many good projects. But the way it was spent and prioritised did not use Government money to its best effect. That is my point. That is why I want to see the Government assess projects on the basis of economic return, as I mentioned earlier to the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker). I want the way in which the projects are assessed to be fully open and transparent, so that we can have a proper debate about the best way to spend our limited money.

It will be growth on the basis of real jobs and on the basis of decent infrastructure, good railways and roads, that will seal our economic future in the right direction, not pursuing the initiatives and schemes that we have seen time and again during the past 13 years, frittering away valuable money. It is our money, not the Government’s money. Ultimately, it is the money of all those in my constituency who pay taxes.

[Alison McGovern]

It is interesting to hear how fearful the hon. Lady is about incorrect spending on infrastructure projects and what she said about how the Labour Government wasted money. My region has seen great benefits from the improved infrastructure on the west coast main line, and we were looking forward to reconnecting the whole of our region, led by the RDA, with the Manchester rail hub. Will she call on Government Front-Bench Members to commit to those infrastructure projects? Will she acknowledge to the House that the money that was spent on infrastructure by the Labour Government was extremely helpful in resetting our national economy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s intervention illustrates the problem with Labour Members. They present schemes, but there is no ex-post or ex-ante analysis of their economic benefits. The hon. Lady asks a question, but does not produce the evidence. Again, I would be happy to discuss that with her later, but she did not present the evidence. We must have debate. Not only are we talking about what we are putting in, we are also talking about the benefits that we get out. We need an economic policy that is based on the costs and benefits and that talks about the important areas of spending. I am pleased that the Chancellor in his Budget decided not to reduce capital spending further, but to make sure that it will go ahead so as to have a proper basis for economic growth and jobs in the future. That is the important area that we need to be looking at.