Banking (Responsibility and Reform)

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Chuka Umunna

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We need shorter interventions.

[Mr Umunna]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. The Walker review proposals are the start, not the end, of the reform needed, but my hon. Friend makes a strong point about the culture in the financial services sector. On the proposal to have an employee on the remuneration committee, would not the RBS board be in a stronger position if it could say, on matters of pay, that an employee representative had been involved in the decision making?

Economic Growth and Employment

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Chuka Umunna

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his intervention, and he should please wait for the answer. We do not need comments from the side.

[Mr Umunna]

There we have a Government Member hungry to fire, as opposed to hire, workers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

First, on borrowing, does the Business Secretary accept that the average of the independent forecast that his Government published last week shows that, for all his claims to be working to a strategy to reduce our debts, his Government could end up borrowing more in every single year remaining of this Parliament than under Labour’s more sensible deficit reduction plan? Secondly, does he accept that confidence indicators when he took office and took charge of his Department were not too bad and were improving until the comprehensive spending review was announced, after which it nosedived?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We must have shorter interventions.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Chuka Umunna

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend noticed the projections for the increase in household debt under this Government? The Office for Budget Responsibility is projecting that it will increase by more than £500 billion this year and over the next five years, and it is also saying that the reason for this is not only inflation but the comprehensive spending review and the Budget.

[The Chairman]

Order. We must keep questions to the subject of the amendment that we are dealing with.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Chuka Umunna

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I will give way shortly.

I have come to the Chamber from this morning’s Treasury Committee sitting, where I asked Jonathan Portes, who until February was chief economist at the Cabinet Office, about this issue. I asked him whether abolishing the right to request flexible working for the parents of 17-year-olds would make a big difference in increasing GDP or growth. He made it very clear that scrapping the extension will “do nothing for growth”. I then asked HSBC’s chief economist whether he would be revising his GDP figures as a result of the scrapping of the measure, and he told me that he would not.

This measure seems to be a gimmick, which tends to suggest that the Government think that watering down employee rights is a substitute for a properly thought out growth strategy. All the figures I have just presented and all the arguments I have just made for the introduction of the extension, which was planned for April, are in the Government’s own impact assessment of the measure. Will the Government think again about it? I grant that they do not and will not accept our arguments to revise their plan for fiscal consolidation, but I suggest that it would be very wise for them to think again on this small measure.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Gavin Williamson, who has until 5.42 pm—about three minutes. I am sorry about that.

Treasury

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Chuka Umunna

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on raising a subject that I consider to be tremendously important. I particularly endorse what she has said about Christians Against Poverty and the citizens advice bureaux, which operate in my constituency. Does she share my huge disappointment that there is no Treasury Minister present to respond—[Interruption.] I was not aware that the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) was a Treasury Minister. Is he the Treasury Minister who will respond to the debate?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Fiona Bruce.