Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Baroness Morgan of Cotes(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
We are currently working on this with the Department of Health and Social Care.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
The Treasury Committee will today publish the Economic Secretary’s letter to me of 30 January on the current solution to problems faced by mortgage prisoners. This solution requires the private sector to be receptive to providing new mortgages to mortgage prisoners currently trapped with inactive lenders. What update can Ministers provide on the promised Treasury officials’ work with those lenders?
ONS Decisions: Student Loans
Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Baroness Morgan of Cotes(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Elizabeth Truss
I have been very clear in my response that this is fundamentally an accounting decision. It does not affect our decisions on higher education policies. The bodies that we are talking about—the ONS and the OBR—are independent bodies. It is right that the Government do not make decisions on how to treat these figures in our national statistics—they are made by independent bodies, and we fully respect that. The ONS is going to be working out more details. It would therefore be completely wrong for me, outside a fiscal event, to comment on the precise implications for the public finances.
I can reassure Members across the House that we will do the right thing by students, and we have done the right thing by students. We have a record number of students in our universities. We rightly have a system where students contribute to their degrees, which deliver them higher future earnings and greater prospects in later life.
It is a bit of a cheek hearing all this from Labour Members, whose party promised in the 2017 general election that it would write off all the student loan book and then—surprise, surprise—said after the election that it would not any more. I think it is a bit of a joke that Labour Members are coming to this House and trying to give us lectures about student finance.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) is right to say that the Treasury Committee covered this in our report to the House published earlier this year, but the Chief Secretary is right to say that the decision does not affect any financial help that students now, or students starting in September or beyond, will get. Does she agree that this is actually a debate about political scrutiny of the deficit, which is an important figure at every fiscal event, and that the change will give a truer picture of what is happening with the deficit?
Elizabeth Truss
My right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Treasury Committee, is correct. Ultimately, this is about making sure that our independent bodies are giving us advice about how our public finances should be presented in order to give the best possible picture. That is completely independent from our decisions about what is best for students. The fact is that this decision does not affect cash flows; it affects the presentation of accounts. We should not conflate that with the very right and proper debates we are having about making sure that our students have a finance system that supports them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Baroness Morgan of Cotes(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
It is important to note that we have 2.9 million more people visiting A&E than we had in 2010. That is why, as well as making sure that we are putting in place a proper modernisation of the health service, we are also investing more money, and we allocated £6.3 billion more at the Budget.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
There are many small and medium-sized enterprises in the Carillion supply chain, as both contractors and direct suppliers. What discussions will the Government have with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and other businesses to make sure that these companies are able to continue to pay the tax liabilities and their employees?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Baroness Morgan of Cotes(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
We have already been clear that the pay review bodies will have the remit to look at how high-quality public sector workers can be retained and recruited right across the board, whether they are teachers, nurses or police officers.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
The chief executive of Virgin Money, Jayne-Anne Gadhia, has this morning given evidence to the Treasury Committee on the Treasury’s women in finance charter—she is the Government’s women in finance champion. Ministers will know that one way of tackling the gender pay gap is to ensure that we have more women in senior roles, so will the Chief Secretary urge the Chancellor to reply to the letter I wrote to him last week about appointments to the Bank of England, where more senior women are needed, because the evidence this morning shows the importance of role models?
Elizabeth Truss
First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her work to promote these issues that she did as Women’s Minister. It would be great to see other professions, such as legal services, looking at the success of the women in finance charter and seeing what they could do. I will urge my colleague to reply to my right hon. Friend’s letter asap.