Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and David Evennett

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I will be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman to talk to him about that initiative. We are making great progress in our schools—we have risen to fourth in the global league table for reading—but we can always do more.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

T6. I welcome my right hon .Friend’s commitment to making inflation and the cost of living his top priority, as it is also a top priority of my constituents. Does he agree that the Institute for Fiscal Studies is entirely correct to say that Labour’s plans for £28 billion of borrowing in its green prosperity plan would simply lead to higher rates of interest and higher inflation?

[Jeremy Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; the answer to inflation is to tackle it, not to make it worse.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and David Evennett

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

That is exactly why we are taking difficult decisions to give this country a high-skill, high-wage economy—measures that the Scottish National party opposed at every step.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

10. What fiscal steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support businesses with energy costs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and David Evennett

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

Of course, there are lessons to be learned about the way those schemes were administered, but I am very proud that unemployment remains at a 50-year low because of the decisions that the Prime Minister took on the furlough scheme and Government-backed loans. That was the right thing to do.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I regularly visit small businesses and entrepreneurs across my constituency of Bexleyheath and Crayford. They are the backbone of our local economy, but like families, they have been badly hit by the cost of living. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that this Government will do all they can to help small businesses across the country to thrive?

[Jeremy Hunt]

That is what Conservatives are all about so I am happy to give him that assurance. It is not just words; it is action: the halving of business rates for most retail, hospitality and leisure businesses; the freezing of the multiplier on business rates; the furlough scheme; the Government-backed loans and the energy price support that we are giving businesses. All that is because this Government back business.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and David Evennett

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to help tackle the persecution of Christians overseas.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to help tackle the persecution of Christians overseas.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I think that today the whole House will want to remember the six people killed on Sunday at mass in a Catholic church in Burkina Faso when a gunman arrived, stormed the church, killed the priest and then set fire to the church. That shows why this is such an important issue to address.

[Mr Hunt]

I had a roundtable of faith leaders at the British high commissioner’s residence in Nigeria, and we had a very good discussion on this issue. The main thing that I took away from that discussion is the immensely important role that politicians have in developing countries in not fanning populism and hatred between religions in election campaigns, which is a very easy route to go down but can have immensely damaging consequences.

[Sir David Evennett]

I welcome the recent publication of the Bishop of Truro’s interim report on the persecution of Christians. Does my right hon. Friend feel that there is now a strong case, based on the bishop’s early findings, for the Government to be even more public and more forceful in calling out persecution where it is identified?

[Mr Hunt]

I think there is. We will obviously await the bishop’s final report. The concern we had, and the reason that we commissioned the report, was a sense that while we have, rightly, called out persecution of people of other religions—the Rohingya in Burma, for example—we have been more reticent in doing that when it is Christians, yet 80% of all the religious persecution in the world happens to Christians.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and David Evennett

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss that issue, which we are committed to exploring in a great deal more detail. If we win the 2018 World cup bid, Newcastle will be one of the successful host cities, which will be brilliant for her and fellow supporters of Newcastle United.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

5. What his policy is on the future of the national lottery; and if he will make a statement.