"All the Secretary of State had to do was repeat his earlier commitments. He chose not to do so. Labour’s unfair funding review shows that the party is consciously starving well-run councils of money, penalising councils that have kept council tax low and subsidising his political friends in high-spending, wasteful, …..." James Cleverly - View Speech
"The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and even the Secretary of State himself have said that they will not touch council tax bands in this Parliament. Does he not recognise that a new tax, or levy, revaluation or surcharge, would be a de facto breach of that commitment, and will he …..." James Cleverly - View Speech
"I start by putting on record my gratitude, which I suspect echoes the views of many right hon. and hon. Members, to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for securing the debate and setting out so clearly in her opening remarks the significance of this issue and …..." James Cleverly - View Speech
That is not what we heard. What we heard was, “We think this is a bad tax that should be got rid of, but we are not going to vote to say it is a bad tax that should be got …..." James Cleverly - View Speech
"You’ve gotta love ’em, haven’t you? Never seen a fence they would not sit on, never seen a position they would not contort around. “These are our principles”, they say, “but so are these, and so are these other ones as well.” It is that clarity that we value from …..." James Cleverly - View Speech
"It was the Conservatives who reduced the stamp duty burden—something that was reversed almost immediately when Labour came into office.
The simple truth is that the Conservatives have always been the party of home ownership and aspiration: helping people to have a stake in not just the country and the …..." James Cleverly - View Speech
"I thank my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor for setting out the opening case for the Opposition’s position on stamp duty. I feel particularly passionate about this policy, which is one I put forward when I was running for the leadership of the Conservative party. Like all good ideas, …..." James Cleverly - View Speech
"That’s how you do it! That is how you actually have a position—it is the wrong position, but at least it is a position. The hon. Lady keeps talking about unfunded tax cuts, but she is getting her language back to front. We do not fund a tax cut, because …..." James Cleverly - View Speech