Humanitarian Aid: Refugees in Greece and the Balkans

Debate between Justine Greening and Mike Gapes

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady has raised that case with me, but it is not one with which I am familiar. I am happy to look at the details and, if necessary, to meet her. As she said, many of the refugees are going to Germany, where there is an existing Syrian diaspora. That is perhaps why the flows there have been larger than those to the UK, even though we have provided asylum to many of the Syrians who have arrived. I will look at that case and, if necessary, meet her.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have been talking today about the symptoms of the crisis, but the cause, as the Secretary of State knows full well, is that 11 million Syrian people have had to flee their homes, 7 million of whom are internally displaced and 4 million of whom are refugees. What are the Government doing to stop the barrel bombing and brutality of the Assad regime? Some 250,000 people have died and many more will die as a result of Russian air strikes and Assad’s barrel bombing. What are we doing about safe havens, humanitarian corridors and the protection of the population inside Syria?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman has raised one of the most important elements of the response to the Syrian crisis. It is incredibly important that we can get to people inside Syria. Many of our cross-border supplies are going into the country from Turkey. It took us over two years to get a UN Security Council resolution even to do that effectively. The action by the Russians is taking us further away from reaching a long-term political settlement in Syria. As the Government have set out, we believe that more action needs to be taken against ISIL, which is also perpetrating huge atrocities against the Syria people.

Afghanistan

Debate between Justine Greening and Mike Gapes

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We all want to make sure that the electoral process happens effectively, and I talked about the need for it to be fair, inclusive and transparent. DFID has done a huge amount of work with other donors supporting the United Nations programme to make sure that that can happen. We will all have to see what happens in the second round of the presidential election, but what we can say from the first round is that, basically, the process worked: most of the polling stations were open as planned; people were able to get to them and to cast their vote; and where there were complaints those are now being assessed by the complaints commission. That is a good first step but, as the hon. Gentleman points out, there are challenges ahead. We will continue to do what we can to make sure that those presidential elections are successful.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The long-term security and development of Afghanistan is very much influenced by the regional context and Afghanistan’s neighbours. Given that there will be a change of Government in India on Friday, will the Secretary of State speak with her colleagues in other Departments to try to impress upon India and Pakistan the importance of resolving regional security issues, as that would be of great benefit to Afghanistan in the long term?

[Justine Greening]

I met the Prime Minister of Pakistan a couple of weeks ago when he was visiting the UK and I raised with him the issue of the importance of this relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan and, in particular, of improving it. That applies both from a political and security perspective, which is crucial, and because of the economic opportunities that are there for both countries if they can get stability and then start to grow the economic relationship. That also stands true for India, and I have no doubt that my colleagues in the Foreign Office will follow up on the point the hon. Gentleman has made.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Justine Greening and Mike Gapes

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Justine Greening)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to resume the debate on the Budget today. This is the coalition Government’s third Budget. It is a Budget that helps Britain to earn its way in the world, rewards working families, backs business, and sticks to our course of clearing up the economic mess that the previous Government left us. This Budget, like the last two, cannot be divorced from the urgent need to deal with Labour’s debts. Let us remember the crisis that we inherited less than two years ago. The state was borrowing one in every four pounds it spent and spending £120 million a day on debt interest alone. The country was taken to the brink of bankruptcy by a profligate Labour Government, leaving our people with the biggest deficit in the developed world.

This Budget marks another step on the road to a strong and stable economy, and that is why we are sticking to our deficit reduction plan, winning credibility in the markets and keeping interest rates low.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Lady explain why this Government are going to add £150 billion to total borrowing? Is that a sign of success?

[Justine Greening]

Many people who see that the hon. Gentleman’s party’s strategy is to borrow in the middle of a debt crisis will wonder why he is asking that question. I presume it is because he thinks that borrowing is not high enough.

This Government ultimately have a laser focus on making Britain the best place in the world to start, finance and grow a business.

National Insurance Contributions Bill

Debate between Justine Greening and Mike Gapes

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)]

We have had an interesting debate and I am grateful for hon. Members’ contributions, especially that of the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who provided the most entertaining canter through an explanatory memorandum I have listened to in years.

At the beginning of the debate, my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary explained that the Bill contains two important measures: an increase in national insurance contributions and a regional employer national insurance contributions holiday for new businesses. Both are part of the Government’s plan to reduce the burden of labour taxation, reducing obstacles for those who want to recruit and retain staff. It is worth stressing that the clauses are part of a much wider package of reforms to help businesses and ensure that Britain is again open for business. The reforms are designed to reverse the most damaging aspects of Labour’s ill-conceived jobs tax. I listened with care to the contributions from Labour Members, but members of the public listening will have found it easy to forget that the Labour party left office with unemployment higher than when it entered.

Nevertheless, I am pleased that the debate has led to so many Opposition Members—and, indeed, Government Members—recognising that the best way to kick-start new business, as the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) put it, is to ensure that businesses are not over-taxed. In fact, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) was extolling the virtues of low tax on businesses. That is why the Bill is so important. Were the coalition Government not in power, rather than corporation tax on businesses going down, it would have gone up, and rather than the national insurance burden, particularly on small businesses, being held down, it would have risen remorselessly.

The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) talked about a split personality, but it is probably fairer to level that charge at the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who, on the one hand, wanted to raise national insurance for all employers, but, on the other hand, complained that the tax break we wanted to introduce to reduce national insurance was not fair because it did not apply to all regions. He cannot have it both ways.

[Mike Gapes]

I am glad that the hon. Lady was listening so carefully to what I said. She refers to unemployment, but will she confirm that 3 million more people were in work when the last Government left office than when they entered?

[Justine Greening]

A lot of people would debate who those jobs were taken by. In reality, unemployment was higher—every Labour Government leaves office with unemployment higher than when they entered.

I want to talk about some of the most important aspects of the Bill. Employers will be £150 better off each year for each employee earning above the threshold. There will be an increase of 650,000 in the number of employees in respect of whom employers pay no national insurance contributions. Compared to this year, employers will pay less national insurance contribution in respect of those employees earning under £20,000. In fact, low-earning employees will also be better off, because the point at which they start to pay national insurance contributions is also going up—by about £23 per week. By reversing the planned employer national insurance increases, this package will help to maintain the UK’s attraction as a place to do business. In doing so, it will support the Government’s aim of creating a fairer and more competitive tax system. The national insurance holiday will help with the transition to a more sustainable model of economic growth, encourage private sector enterprise and investment where it is most needed, create jobs in some of our poorest regions, and encourage people to become business people, entrepreneurs and wealth creators—the very people who will lead the recovery.

Those points were made eloquently by my hon. Friend Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) and later by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), who also talked about the burden of red tape, which is another matter that the Government are keen to reduce for businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) talked about the need to support business, and to create new jobs and the positive culture that we need to engender throughout the country. That is absolutely what the Government want to do.

The Bill should be seen in the context of wider measures. The Government have taken several steps to support business. In the emergency budget we announced measures to reduce corporation tax, not raise it on large companies year on year. We announced measures to reduce the small companies rate of corporation tax. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about what we can do to help small companies and new companies. He was right, and that is precisely why, instead of increasing corporation tax on those companies, we preferred to try to ensure that they can enjoy a rate decrease.

We have gone further. The regional growth fund will benefit all communities in our country. The capital infrastructure plan was announced as part of the spending review, and more capital will go into supporting our country’s infrastructure than would have happened under the previous Government. We have published the local growth White Paper.