Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Stewart and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to (a) support savers and (b) promote home ownership.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Harriett Baldwin)]

The Government stand firmly on the side of people who want to work hard, save up, buy their own homes, and retire with dignity. We have increased allowances for individual savings accounts, introduced the Help to Buy scheme, pensioner bonds and pension freedoms, and taken 95% of people out of tax on their savings.

[Harriett Baldwin]

What a pleasure it is to welcome my hon. Friend to the Chamber. He is absolutely right: more people are employed than ever before, and mortgage rates are extremely low. As a result of our long-term economic plan, my hon. Friend’s constituents in Havant, and constituents elsewhere, can now aspire to own their own homes one day.

[Iain Stewart]

Policies such as Help to Buy have proved very popular in my constituency, but may I urge my hon. Friend to be more ambitious in the longer term? Will she consider expanding the shared-ownership model, which enables people to take an initially small equity share in a property at the start of their careers, and then save up in order to expand it as their careers progress?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the strong endorsement he received from the voters of Milton Keynes to return here and express their interests. I am very pleased to hear Help to Buy is so popular in Milton Keynes. The town tops the charts for the attractiveness of buying versus renting. Shared ownership is indeed an excellent way to help people take their first steps on the property ladder, and the Government remain committed to it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Stewart and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

2. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the permanent cap on non-EU work migrants after its first year of operation.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

4. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the permanent cap on non-EU work migrants after its first year of operation.

Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Iain Stewart and Harriett Baldwin

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am sure that colleagues on the Government side of the House are absolutely delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) is the Prime Minister.

[Iain Stewart]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on having proceeded this far with her Bill. Does she accept that if the Bill became law, we could introduce measures that would protect England without barring any Member from voting on legislation? I refer to the idea put forward by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and others for a double majority system in which Bills that applied only to one territorial part of the United Kingdom would require the support both of the whole House and of Members from that territorial part in order to be passed.

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct; there has been a substantial body of work looking at exactly how to resolve this question without creating the completely impossible situation of having two classes of MP.