Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yorkshire is of course home to some of the country’s finest financial institutions, such as the Yorkshire Bank and the Yorkshire Building Society—

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

And the Skipton.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Like all financial institutions in the UK, they will be desperately keen to understand what the Government’s Brexit plans will mean for financial services. The Treasury still has not replied to my letter in January asking for some basic clarity, but we need to know how the Government intend to achieve equivalence, how it will be made certain and how we will avoid becoming just a rule taker from the rest of the EU. Chancellor, these are reasonable questions, so may we start to have some answers, please?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Kirby]

I was going to make a joke about the Liberal Democrats, but as there are none in the Chamber I will merely reassure my hon. Friend that the Government have no current plans to introduce a robot tax.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Current tax rules do not allow companies to set the cost of mathematical research against tax. That is obviously very out of date in an era of data science, and it does not apply to science and engineering. Will Ministers take this as a Budget representation, please?

[Simon Kirby]

We have significantly increased R and D tax credits; and, as a mathematician, I agree with the hon. Lady that maths is always important.