UK Economy

Debate between Greg Hands and Danny Kinahan

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

Yes, it will include the Home Office, and it will advise on the many options we face as we determine our future relationship with the EU. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I expect to play my own part in that task over the coming months.

[Danny Kinahan]

Does the Minister agree that the unit needs to consider how we hold the Union together and build the relationships between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, given the direction in which Scotland seems to want to move and the need to maintain our relationship and trade with Ireland?

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Of course, we have to keep on board all the devolved Administrations and make sure we get the right deal for all the nations of this country and, indeed, for Gibraltar. I know that different parts of the UK voted different ways—my constituency voted 70% to remain—but we must come together and ask for, and get, the best possible deal for the UK as a whole in the negotiations. That is absolutely the key point. This is not a time for division between our nations and communities.

Now is also the time to heal divisions in the country and in our communities. I was one of the first to condemn the disgraceful attack this weekend on the Polski Osrodek Spoleczno-Kulturalny—POSK—which is in what used to be my constituency in Hammersmith. I was delighted that—people have commented on this—perhaps for the first time in 20 years the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and I have found something to agree on. We were retweeting each other in condemnation of the attack. It was an absolutely disgraceful attack on the Polish community in particular and on EU nationals and foreigners in general.

There was some irony there. I am not sure that the people responsible had any sense of what POSK did. POSK was set up in the 1960s. It had nothing to do with EU freedom of movement and labour or our joining the EU in 1973—even if it did, of course, the attack would still not have been correct. POSK was founded back in the 1960s, as a focal centre for the local Polish community, many of whom fought shoulder to shoulder with British servicemen in the second world war, fighting for our values and protecting our way of life. Never has the word “solidarity” felt more appropriate in how we reach out to the Polish community and other EU communities in this country. Sadly, that attack was not the only incident of xenophobia across the country, but every right-thinking person, on both sides of the House and the referendum debate will see them for what they are: ignorant and unwelcome displays of hatred, which have no part to play in the future of this country.

Both professionally, as the representative of a constituency where about 17% of local people are EU nationals and which benefits from their contribution, and personally, as the husband of a German wife and father of half-German children—they were in tears on Friday morning after hearing the referendum result—I want to send the message loud and clear from this Chamber that our fellow Europeans are still welcome in the UK, as are those from beyond the continent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Hands and Danny Kinahan

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

9. What steps he is taking to assist women born between 1953 and 1955 affected by recent changes in pension age qualification.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Hands)]

As we remove gender inequality, women born between 1953 and 1955 will receive their state pension at the same age as men, or earlier. The Government have written to all those affected by increases to the state pension age and have acted to ease the timetable, at the cost of £1 billion, ensuring that 81% of all women affected see a rise of a year or less under the Pensions Act 2011. As the Chancellor announced last week, the basic state pension will rise next year by £3.35 to £119.30 a week—the largest real-terms increase for 15 years.

[Danny Kinahan]

It is very good to see the pension going up. However, research by the Pensions Policy Institute and Age UK shows that a third of women in work are ineligible for automatic enrolment into a workplace pension, leaving them at risk of not having a decent income later in life. What research has the Minister or the Department for Work and Pensions carried out in order to understand what difficulties they will have in future?

[Greg Hands]

This continues a process that has been going on since the mid-’90s to equalise the state pension age and the process begun in 2011 to increase the state pension to make sure that it can be more affordable overall in terms of its ability to meet our commitments under the triple lock and the big increase I mentioned earlier. I did not hear all of the hon. Gentleman’s question precisely, but I think he mentioned Age UK. The charity director of Age UK said that this big concession is

“a significant financial commitment from the Government at a difficult time. This will give a much needed 6 month respite to all the women who would have had to work an extra two years.”