Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Russell Brown

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I visited Jordan earlier this year, I saw for myself how many refugees were not in the camp. Indeed, the majority are in communities outside the camp, which is one reason why we have earmarked specific funding to support, both in Jordan and Lebanon, those refugees who are not in camps. Clearly, as the crisis continues, the pressures on neighbouring countries will grow. The Government are deeply concerned about that, which is why we have urged members of the international community to work together to take action.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Keeping in mind the fact that more than half the refugees in Syria are children, will the Secretary of State tell the House exactly what the Department is doing to support child health, protection and education in this humanitarian disaster?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Russell Brown

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. It is worth remembering that 5 million people are living in poverty in Rwanda. Our programme of support is aimed at helping those people in particular. When we came into government, we attached more conditionality to our general budget support, not least through the partnership principles. It is things such as the partnership principles that I will look at in reaching the decision we will take in December.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on her new appointment. She told my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) that officials were consulted and that her predecessor sought their advice. Were other donors and allies who had suspended payments to Rwanda consulted about their views on the impact of the UK’s unilateral decision to reinstate aid?

[Justine Greening]

I was not in my role when that decision was taken, so I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly, but the International Development Committee is planning to look at this issue, and I am sure it will be able to ask and get answers to those questions for him.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Justine Greening and Russell Brown

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Labour Members have learned nothing from the mess they handed over to us. They see us in a debt crisis and their solution is to keep on borrowing—keep on digging—and we all know who would pick up that bill.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

If the hon. Gentleman reads the whole OBR report, he will realise that Britain is an economy that operates in a global marketplace. Of course, his solution to the challenges faced in that global marketplace is to go and join all the countries that are facing problems, not to tackle our own economic crisis that his party left us. I assume that most, if not all the interventions that I get from Labour Members will be cherry-picked statistics that offer no alternative solutions to the challenges facing Britain.

[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Justine Greening]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has an alternative.

[Mr Brown]

I am not about to cherry-pick a statistic, but let me give the Secretary of State some facts. I appreciate that she was not here at the time, but when the Labour Government came into power in 1997, the servicing of the debt that was left behind amounted to more than was being spent on transport and defence combined. That was a major task to be handled by the incoming Labour Government, so everything was not rosy in the garden.

[Justine Greening]

The previous Conservative Government handed over a golden economic legacy. It was the Labour party that handed over a Britain loaded up with debt, costing us £120 million a day in debt interest, and that left unemployment higher than when it came to office, like every single Labour Government we have ever had. I will take no lectures from the party opposite on economic management, and neither will the British people.

Motoring Fuel Costs

Debate between Justine Greening and Russell Brown

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, but the price of oil is a spot price driven by commodity markets. We are talking about a part of the industry that is different from the area in which we chose to raise tax. We are working with industry to ensure that we mitigate any risk of a lessening of investment in the North sea as a result of that tax. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow pointed out, we needed to strike a balance to take into account the overall effect of high oil prices as they fed through into the broader economy in petrol prices and energy prices more generally.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the report from the Office for Budget Responsibility. It showed clearly that, although the Exchequer has some growing tax receipts, the dampening effect of the rest of the economy is also significant. We felt that although there was an overall impact on the economy, one sector—the oil companies—was doing much better from a high oil price. It seemed fair and sensible to look at how we could balance some of the value that was being generated by the high oil price, and to create a fairer split between oil companies and those motorists and businesses that bear the brunt of the prices at the pump. We are working hard with industry to mitigate the impact of our policy on investment—the impact was analysed as being small by industry observers such as Wood Mackenzie. This is an important debate, and the Government recognise that motoring is an essential part of life for households and businesses. Fuel costs affect us all, and as the price of petrol continues to rise, those costs have become an evermore significant part of everyday life for people and companies. We were keen to look at what could be done.

The previous Government left us facing the introduction of a fuel escalator from the 2009 Budget that would have involved seven fuel duty increases. I realise that in this half-hour debate, only a Government Minister gets the chance to respond to the Member who secured it, but I am disappointed that a shadow Minister is not present to listen to some of the concerns raised. One of our biggest challenges concerned how to deal with the proposed above-inflation increase in fuel duty. That increase could have resulted in average prices at the pump being 6p per litre higher than they are currently. We would have seen above-inflation rises in 2012, 2013 and 2014. When we took office, no plan was in place to support motorists, and within the huge financial constraints in which we found ourselves, and with little room for manoeuvre, we had to see what we could do to address such an important issue.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I am sure that my colleagues will read Hansard tomorrow to see exactly what has been said. The Government inherited potential increases in fuel duty and the Chancellor has done the right thing by removing the fuel duty escalator, just as the previous Labour Government did. We also froze proposed increases in fuel duty on 11 occasions because of the increase in the price of crude oil.

[Justine Greening]

What was missing, however, was any kind of long-term plan for how to deal with changes in the price of oil feeding through to the pump. We wanted to look at how a stabiliser mechanism would work, which we felt would be in the interests of households, companies and the overall economy.

Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Debate between Justine Greening and Russell Brown

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I do not know exactly how they voted, but the previous Labour Government consistently increased fuel duty on motorists, taking no account of whether that was affordable.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way—at the end of the day, she is a fair person. She talks about the increases imposed by the previous Labour Government, but she must also recognise that on 11 occasions over a nine-year period, they saw fit to suspend or abandon any proposed increases simply because of the rising price of fuel. I sincerely hope that she and her colleagues remember that in the light of the motion.

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about postponements, because those fuel duty increases eventually came through. That is one reason why in their final months in office—from December 2008 to April 2010—the previous Government increased fuel duty no fewer than four times.

Over the weekend, the shadow Chancellor confidently proposed cutting VAT on fuel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

Of course they should, but as so often they never do, unfortunately.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Justine Greening]

I will give way one more time, but then I really must make some progress so that other Members can have their say.

[Mr Brown]

I am indebted to the hon. Lady, but may I just put the record straight? When Labour came to power in 1997, the duty and tax left by the previous Conservative Government accounted for 74%; when we left office, duty and tax accounted for 65%.

[Justine Greening]

And a huge fiscal deficit and debt to boot, so we will take no lectures from the Labour party. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can discuss with the shadow Chancellor how he thinks the huge deficit that his party left our country—it costs us £120 million a day to service our debt interest—should be addressed. The elephant in the room, which we have not talked about so far today because it is not in the Opposition’s motion, is how they would tackle the deficit. The answer is that they would not tackle it, which is why it is so lucky that Labour is not in government at the moment.