Autumn Statement Resolutions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

The House, on both sides, wants to get Britain growing, and that is a great statement of intent. I am delighted that the Opposition parties agree with the Government and the Conservative party on that. I hope they will also agree that it is important that people keep more of what they earn, because they have earned it, they deserve it and that is how we will create the right work incentives to grow the economy in the years ahead. I want to put on record my support for the changes to national insurance, which will be a really important step in delivering exactly that. The fact that 27 million people will be getting a tax cut and that someone employed on a wage of £35,000 will be £450 better off is an excellent step in the right direction, and I hope there will be more to come.

I also welcome the changes for the self-employed, because it is crucial that we focus not only on those employed in large businesses but on those who work for themselves. They are the strivers who get up every morning looking for new opportunities, not only for themselves but for their families and for our wider economy. It is also important for both groups, whether they are employed or self-employed, that there is fairness in the system, and that is why it is right that welfare is looked at again. It is important that this country has a safety net. Across the House, everyone agrees with that simple premise. Those who fall on hard times, those who find themselves in difficulties and those who have particular needs that mean they cannot work at a point in their life deserve our support, and I know that the country is with us on that. But those who do not seek work are the people that the Government are rightly looking at again. I know that the people out there who we work for, the people who pay taxes, are on the Government’s side as we ensure that those who do not seek work are not provided with the support of generous taxpayers across this country.

I also give credit to the Government for the abolition of the lifetime allowance, which was announced earlier than the autumn statement. Again, this is an important statement of intent because it creates the right incentives for people to be able to work in this country. That includes people who want to work longer, given that our health is consistently better and that we can work well into what was traditionally seen as retirement. By seeking to reverse the change, the Labour party is wrong. It would price out—tax out—doctors, policemen and teachers from public service at their peak. Labour’s plan to restore the lifetime allowance would cripple those who want to continue working and contributing to our economy and society, which is something that we should be welcoming; I certainly do.

I said that I hope this is a starting point and that the Government will go further—I believe it is crucial that they do. Although childcare is an important issue for many people in this country, family-friendly taxation is arguably more important. Many people choose to use informal forms of childcare, and many people want to spend more time with their children during their early years. Indeed, 74% of women polled say that they want to spend more time with their children, particularly before they start school, and two thirds want to spend all their time with their children before they start school, but they cannot because the support is not there in the tax system. That makes us an outlier—families are taxed about 26% more in this country than in our OECD counterparts. It is a question of fairness. Individuals pay less tax than the OECD average, but families pay more. I hope the Government will look at that in the months ahead. Indeed, I hope they will look at the excellent report from the Centre for Policy Studies, to which I happened to contribute, outlining some of the options.

The SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), talked about the squeezed middle. It is crucial that tax thresholds—particularly the 40p threshold—are reviewed. It is wrong of the SNP to say that it is here in defence of the squeezed middle, when the squeezed middle are the ones being taxed the hardest north of the border.

We must go further, too, to prove that we are different from the SNP, and that we recognise that people who strive to progress in their career, who strive to earn more money, should be rewarded. I am led to believe that, had the 40p threshold remained index-linked from the time of Nigel Lawson, it would now be in the order of £80,000, so there is much further to go to make sure the threshold does not affect police sergeants, teachers with 10 years’ experience and the like. That was not its intended purpose. Again, if we are keen to make work pay, and if we are keen to create the right incentives in our economy for people to try to secure more hours, to secure a promotion or to set up their own business, we need to make sure the tax system reflects that.

In addition, those who have done the right thing all their lives by saving hard and putting their hard-earned money into their family home should not be penalised. It is crucial that the Government look again at lifting the inheritance tax threshold from £325,000 to perhaps £1 million, as was proposed by the former Chancellor, George Osborne, in 2007. This would simply do what the Conservative party says it has always wanted to do, and I hope the Front Bench will look at that in the months ahead.

I am conscious of time, so I will move on to spending reductions and capital receipts. When the Government cancelled High Speed 2, I wonder whether they considered privatising the operation, rather than selling off the land piecemeal. There is an opportunity here to build infrastructure for the future, but for the private sector to do it and for the Government to get a capital receipt now. I hope the Government would welcome that, because it is wrong to stymie infrastructure for the future, but it is right that taxpayers’ money is best spent on road projects across this country.

There is a huge amount of spending across Government. One example is in the Department for Transport, where a huge amount of money is being spent on so-called active travel. This is the left getting what it wants, which is everyone moving from their own private transport into Government-controlled transport, or being forced to walk or cycle in 15-minute neighbourhoods. That is not what the people of this country want. They do not want blanket 20 mph speed limits, so those are the sorts of cuts we should seek.

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to a maiden speech. I call Sarah Edwards.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I welcome the new Secretary of State.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The volume of sewage spewed out by water companies is completely unacceptable, and the public have rightly shown their outrage. Yesterday, in my first day in office, I told water chief executives that it is not good enough, and I have instructed them to write to me formally by 21 September with a plan for how they will make significant improvements. I also met the Environment Agency and Ofwat, and I told them that they should use every enforcement power available to them to make sure that there is compliance. I will not hesitate to take further action if I do not see the pace of change that this House expects.

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[Mr Jayawardena]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for her constituents and constituency, and she is right to say that although storm overflows should not be used, they are a safety valve. They stop the flooding of raw sewage back into people’s homes—that is what the Liberal Democrats are promising.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Jim McMahon.

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[Mr Jayawardena]

The kept animals Bill does include the powers to introduce those restrictions through secondary legislation. Last year, Her Majesty’s Government launched a consultation that proposed measures for both commercial and non-commercial movements of dogs into Great Britain, and I am told that there were more than 20,000 responses, so there was clearly a great deal of interest from the public. My Department will publish a response in due course.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement: Scrutiny

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jayawardena]

We have a system that compares very well with other parliamentary systems around the world. We will not be extending the CRaG period, given the extensive scrutiny time that Parliament has had—as I set out earlier, seven months by the end of the period—and we will not be able to offer a debate. The Secretary of State said that she felt the agreement could benefit from a general debate, but that is a matter for business managers in this House. The Labour party was very keen to have another debate yesterday, which took a whole day of parliamentary business from this House.

The section 42 report is there to inform the scrutiny period, not create an additional scrutiny period above and beyond CRaG. We published that report on 6 June. As my hon. Friend says, it was sent to the International Trade Committee, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the International Agreements Committee in the other place on 27 May to ensure they had ample time to consider the report. There is a balance, as I say, between ensuring sufficient time for robust scrutiny and ensuring agreements come into place quickly. I think we have got that balance right.

On CRaG, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 was introduced by the Labour party. It gave the opportunity for parliamentary disapproval of treaties statutory effect and it gave the House of Commons the power to block ratification. Members across the House will know the answer to that. I am more than willing to set out the process, but in the interests of time and allowing people to come in I shall sit down for now.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Nick Thomas-Symonds.

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[Mr Jayawardena]

Asked and answered, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Right. We now come to the next urgent question, from Dame Diana Johnson.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jayawardena]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a great champion of religious freedom in particular, and the Government’s international obligations and commitments, including on freedoms, are always of paramount importance when it comes to making our decisions. We encourage all states to uphold their obligations, and we condemn any incidences of discrimination because of religion or belief, regardless of the country or faith involved. We do engage with India on a range of issues, as global Britain does carry the torch of freedom forward.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just say to the Minister that he has his fan club up there in the Public Gallery? It is a pleasure to see his family watching him.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. They were delighted when you waved at them last time.

The United Kingdom is committed to deepening her partnership with Norway and Iceland, which was reinforced by the trade deal that I signed in July last year. It is one of our greenest deals ever and preserves our right to regulate to reach our net zero targets. Twin-tracking alongside that free trade agreement, we continue to collaborate on the development of green technologies such as the North sea link interconnector, which links the electricity systems of the United Kingdom and Norway and will increase the capacity of our renewable markets.

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the SNP spokesperson, Drew Hendry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Jayawardena.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

Oh, that question is for me as well—thank you, Mr Speaker. I am delighted with the interest from Opposition Members in trade matters.

Her Majesty’s Government share the British public’s high regard for animal welfare and environmental standards. We have agreed ground-breaking animal welfare provisions with Australia and New Zealand, including stand-alone chapters reflecting the importance of animal welfare in those agreements. We have secured ambitious environmental chapters that preserve our right to regulate to meet net zero, affirm our shared commitment to the Paris agreement and will help us to co-operate on a range of environmental issues.

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[Mr Jayawardena]

I commend my hon. Friend for his research. He is absolutely right: this is an important part of our wider diplomacy. Economic diplomacy is crucial to making sure that we spread British values around the world, including protections for the environment. As economies develop, they will of course want to seek the technologies that we have in this country to decarbonise and improve the quality of life for their people, too.

[Mr Speaker]

I welcome Nick Thomas-Symonds to his new position on the Front Bench.

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[Mr Jayawardena]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his consistent interest in this area, and I value the conversations we have had on this matter. In the four quarters to Q2 this year, we have had £2.6 billion-worth of trade with Pakistan, and I am pleased to confirm to him that we already offer Pakistan the enhanced framework in the generalised scheme of preferences, which ensures that it has more generous access to the British market than others do today. He will also know, and the House will want to be aware, that between July and September this year we ran a consultation on our proposed new developing countries trading scheme. This is a statement of our intent: the British Government want to take a more ambitious, more generous, more pro-growth approach to trading with developing nations. Our new scheme will mean more opportunities and less bureaucracy—

[Mr Speaker]

Come on. I call Alistair Carmichael.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

I wish the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) a happy birthday. I hope he has had all the answers he was looking for today.

We now have trade deals with 68 countries around the world, plus the EU, covering trade worth £744 billion last year. Last week, I signed a trade deal with the European Economic Area-European Free Trade Association countries Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. It is one of the new generation of trade deals we are signing, which Britain has struck as an independent trading nation. It shows that Britain is a pioneering partner of choice when it comes to trade. They have gone further with us than with any other FTA partner, benefiting every corner of our country. From fish feed to cheese, sausages to strawberries, tariffs have been cut, backing jobs across Britain.

[Mr Speaker]

Let’s go to Karl MᶜCartney. [Interruption.] Maybe not. So we will go to Sir David Amess.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is far too long in both cases—we will not get anyone else in at this rate. Minister, try and do the best you can.

[Mr Jayawardena]

My Department really does recognise the role that trade and tariffs can play in reducing global carbon emissions, and we are clear that trade does not have to come at the expense of the environment, but growing trade is important for so many more reasons. It delivers the things that our people care about: better jobs, higher wages, greater choice and lower prices, and our new global tariff helps to deliver that, as well as supporting the environment, by liberalising tariffs on 104 environmental goods that we are promoting.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We go back to the Minister, who looks as though he is a fan of James Bond—“Dr No” no less.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Who wouldn’t be, Mr Speaker?

Like my hon. Friend, I am also proud of the high-quality produce from British farmers, including from those in Cornwall, and I can assure him that trade deals will help deliver economic security for Britain and protect us all from new trade barriers and tariffs that could harm jobs and industry. I can assure him that Cornish food producers will be supported at every turn and will continue to be highly competitive. Negotiations will certainly reward them through providing access to new markets.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Ranil Jayawardena

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jayawardena]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that copper’s capacity is insufficient for today’s challenges. We must make sure that we deal with not only today’s challenges but tomorrow’s, so we must ensure that there is more fibre than we even need today. We do not want to end up, perhaps in five or 10 years—not a million miles away—with the fibre we install today not being good enough for the challenges of tomorrow.

In turning to the challenges of tomorrow, it is important to consider mobile communication, which is enabled by the fibre broadband that links the mobile masts. Fibre provides the connectivity, via the masts, to users who perhaps want to do their banking on their phones, as several Members have said. Deploying mobile infrastructure remains challenging at times, particularly in remote locations or among difficult topography. It is important for us to consider the viability of such initiatives as we move from 4G to 5G, and as we do so, perhaps we could find a remedy for those communities that have not even moved to 3G or 4G. We must ensure that those initiatives are viable, so that no one is left behind. Mobile telecommunications can be an excellent way of providing mobile broadband—fast broadband—to rural communities, instead of running fibre to those rural homes. It could be that part of the solution, part of dealing with the final 4%, is to ensure that fibre is run to mobile masts, which are then accessible to those rural communities.

Reducing operating costs is critical to ensure that the potential economic viability of these sites is considered properly. I am sure that the Government will consider that in the deliberation that they will doubtless have in the time ahead. Targeted business rates relief to enable fibre cabling to be rolled out to those hard-to-reach areas would be particularly helpful in notspots that have been badly served by telecoms to date and could be much better served by telecoms in future.

It is important to prioritise sites such as railways and motorways, as mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) and for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). They demonstrated that to have connected commuters, which was the term used by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford, we need fibre to be run alongside railways.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman will have to sit down for a second. We cannot both be on our feet. I have given a lot of leeway, but I do not want to get too involved in 4G, 5G, and telecommunications being passed down motorways and railways, as they have absolutely nothing to do with what we are discussing. I know that you have been asked to filibuster, but do not worry because we have so many more speakers to come and you might deprive them. Come on, Mr Jayawardena.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Mr Deputy Speaker, filibuster never. I am informing the nation.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Yes, but it has got to be on the subject that we are discussing. We will be talking about cricket next. Come on.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Mr Deputy Speaker suggests that this is a filibuster. My hon. Friend has hardly cleared his throat.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The worry is that I have heard too much already.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you are very, very kind, but I shall be bringing my remarks to a close very shortly.

It is important to recognise that new fibre, which will be rolled out under business rates relief, allows for better mobile connectivity in those hard-to-reach areas.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point on the topic of infrastructure around railways and roads. Does he agree that airports are important and need infrastructure as well?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I have a good suggestion for the House: I think you should put in for an Adjournment debate on that very subject. With two Members, I am sure that you can do the subject justice.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Mr Deputy Speaker, as ever, you make an excellent suggestion. I will speak to the hon. Gentleman in due course.

As we allow fibre to be rolled out, using this relief, to areas that have not been accessible in the past, it is important to reflect on the way in which people are changing their behaviour. People are moving to mobile. We need to ensure that accessibility to the mobile network—the fibre network—is possible. That is why it is critical that we work with companies such as Network Rail to roll out fibre on its land as well as across other people’s land.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, all of this is in stark contrast to the way in which we used to work. It is important that people are helped along this journey. If we want to roll out more fibre, we need to ensure that there is proven demand for it, otherwise it is simply not commercially viable. We need to reduce the operating costs, which we are doing through business rates relief for the roll-out of new fibre. It is good to see the new digital training opportunities that have been created as part of the digital strategy. The new digital skills partnership is seeing Government, business, charities and voluntary organisations come together, which is really positive news. I should declare an interest, so I refer Members to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. A plan by Lloyds Banking Group to give face-to-face digital skills training to 2.5 million people, charities and small businesses by 2020 is a good example of that partnership. Google has pledged to provide five hours of digital skills as part of its commitment, too. The idea has been adopted by business.

The strategy and these plans demonstrate that the Government take businesses and people seriously in rolling out fibre broadband across the country. This is part of the cuts to business rates that benefit all rate payers and will be worth almost £9 billion over the next five years, and it is part of the Government’s focus on ensuring that we create an economy that serves the whole country—all the nations and regions. It is about ensuring that the Government are committed to the long-term reform of this country.

Who would have thought that Alibaba and Amazon would be the big retailers of today, not the greengrocer on the high street? Who would have thought that we would have been speaking to people across the world on FaceTime instead of flying across the world to see them? Who would have thought that people would be able to watch this speech on their mobile phone rather than read it, dare I say, in Hansard? I am sure that many will.

[Several hon. Members rose—]