Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Reynolds Excerpts(15Â years, 11Â months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend. As we are just a couple of minutes from the statement on higher education, it would be interesting to hear from the Opposition about whether they really will pursue this graduate tax, which the shadow Chancellor has passionately opposed, including in the open letter he wrote to his party leader just a couple of weeks ago.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
The Government failed to conduct an equality impact assessment on the June 2010 Budget. Can the Chief Secretary reassure me that they will not make the same mistake again, and will the Government ensure that they assess the—probably disproportionate—impact on women of the comprehensive spending review?
Danny Alexander
The answer is yes. Departments will be carrying out these assessments on their spending decisions, and I myself held a round-table meeting in the Treasury with a number of different organisations involved in the equalities area to ensure that we were considering all the relevant issues in the run-up to publishing the spending review.
Office of Tax Simplification
Emma Reynolds Excerpts(16Â years, 2Â months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
It is ironic that the new Government’s anti-quango approach seems to be translating into setting up more quangos. Apart from grabbing headlines, why cannot the functions of this new office be carried out within the Treasury and, therefore, be directly accountable to Parliament?
Mr Gauke
Some months ago my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a speech identifying those areas in which quangos would be an advantage, and one of those was the ability to provide independent advice in a technical area. This is one of those areas, and we believe that engaging with outside bodies and making use of outside expert advice will actually benefit the creation of good tax law and improve our tax system. This policy is not about grabbing headlines, but improving our tax system because that is what we want to do. We will leave the headline grabbing and the sudden announcements to our predecessors.