Road Pricing
Lord Kamall Excerpts(7 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
What I can say is that this Government have invested significantly in local highway networks. For example, since 2015, we have invested £11 billion and, as part of Network North, £8.3 billion has been earmarked for local road maintenance over the next 11 years.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my interests as set out in the register. Many economists like road pricing because it relies on the principle of “polluter pays”. As we shift from polluting vehicles to EVs, hydrogen, et cetera—more environmentally friendly vehicles—we might move from “polluter pays” to the principle that those who contribute to the wear and tear of our national infrastructure have to pay as drivers. I know that the Government have ruled it out at this stage, but in the longer term, have they done any planning on how we pay for upkeep of the roads? Perhaps those who contribute to wear and tear could make a contribution.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am not aware of any work in that area, but, of course, my noble friend raises a very important point. There is the issue of wear and tear on the roads, which all vehicles contribute to, but what is sometimes overlooked is the impact of particulates that come from tyres. That might be from an internal combustion engine vehicle or from an electric vehicle—it is another source of pollution.
Self-employment: A1 Forms
Lord Kamall Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The certificates are a slightly different issue because of course that will depend on the overseas countries accepting a digital form, which I suspect may be slightly more challenging. Where that is possible we will look at it, but we are now focused on ensuring that the processes are sped up. It is important that we get the automation in but it cannot be done end to end, as in some cases one needs caseworkers’ judgment to issue the A1 certificate.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, raised the issue of the April deadline and making sure that the applications are available—the A1 form as well as the certification. What advice can my noble friend the Minister give to those who do not receive their forms in time, or maybe receive their form electronically but do not have the necessary certification? What leeway will be given to those individuals?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The A1 certificates are issued all the time. As the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, pointed out, in many cases a worker needs a certificate for every time they go to a certain country, because of course the circumstances may change. However, in other cases, forms can be valid for up to two years. Therefore there is not an April deadline per se. The April 2024 date is when HMRC expects to be processing back to its normal target arrangements.
Climate Risk Models
Lord Kamall Excerpts(10 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The noble Lord raises a very important issue. However, it is slightly beyond the remit of the Question.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, it is important to recognise what models do: they look at the real world in practice, try to explain it in theory, and then try to predict the future using past and, perhaps, future data. All models are flawed to a certain extent. Given the focus on other things apart from inflation, such as climate risk models, in my noble friend’s experience or opinion, does she think this distracts the Bank of England from one of its essential tasks, which is to focus on getting inflation below 2%?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Bank of England has two major roles, as my noble friend will be aware: it is responsible for monetary policy but also for financial stability. Climate risk very much falls into the latter. However, he is absolutely right about models: there is probably not a single model in the world that is 100% accurate—they can never be. However, it is not about forecasts but about scenarios. It is about taking a range of possible outcomes and thinking about how firms would react to different scenarios. It is right that the Bank of England consider this; however, I know that it is very focused on getting inflation down.
NatWest: Account Terminations and Branch Closures
Lord Kamall Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I have to disagree, because that is exactly what we did, by making the change in the Financial Services and Markets Act. We are now putting that into place. Now, of course, we cannot do that immediately. A consultation is live at the moment and it will bring together all the information we need to ensure that customers get the banking services they need.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My noble friend the Minister has explained that, now the SI has been laid, customers in future will be told why their accounts have been closed. Those customers will then want to open new accounts. Will they then be told why their application has failed and why they have not been given a bank account when they apply and are turned down?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
That is a very good question from my noble friend and I do not have the answer to it. But I would say that the banking sector for individuals is incredibly competitive, and for those individuals with a very poor credit rating, who are not able to access standard current accounts, the Government require banks to offer basic bank accounts. There are 7 million individuals who have those accounts, so it should be the case that all individuals can get a bank account.
Bank of England: Interest Rate Policy
Lord Kamall Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
I am not aware of all the evidence that the Select Committee that the noble Lord refers to has received, but I am sure that once the Select Committee produces its report the Government will read it with interest.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, many people recognise that we have an independent Bank of England, but we also have a Bank of England that is supposed to meet a target of 2% inflation. Given that the Bank has continuously failed to meet that target—I understand also that government can contribute to this—one would expect the Bank either to comment on government policy which it saw as inflationary or, at the same time, to be accountable for not holding to its target. Given what the Minister says about tempting her or otherwise to talk about the Bank of England and its policy, it is important that people understand that when the Bank fails to meet its target it has to be held accountable to someone, and many noble Lords have not seen that accountability.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, when the steps were taken to make the Bank of England independent, measures were also put in place to ensure that it is accountable to the Government and to Parliament for its decisions.
Energy Profits Levy
Lord Kamall Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, a number of factors affect predicted revenues from the EPL, not least the high degree of volatility that we have seen in commodity prices. I say to the noble Lord that, if we do not have investment allowances in place and if we do not invest in the future of this industry in the UK, there will be less revenue in future coming from UK oil and gas fields to contribute to the Exchequer and our priorities in future.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, following that answer by the Minister, I completely agree that we still need oil and gas as we transition to net zero. We cannot have a modern digital economy with high-speed electric rail running on solar and wind only, as the technology stands. However, the issue with the levy is that there are companies that are now saying they will pull investment from the North Sea. So how do we encourage that investment, given that we need it in the transition to net zero?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My noble friend is right. That is why the Government have always sought to deliver a balance between a fair return for the UK from the use of its resources and providing the right conditions to attract investment in the North Sea. That is why we have the investment allowance in the EPL that provides an additional incentive for companies to reinvest profits in the UK. On the point about environmental impact, the level of tax relief available for upstream decarbonisation expenditure was increased from January this year to incentivise companies for the cleaner production of oil and gas.
Alcohol Duty Bands
Lord Kamall Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government have regular dialogue with the Scottish Government—indeed, the Prime Minister is there today. I agree with the noble Lord that the minimum-unit pricing approach has not always had the desired effect. The UK Government’s position is to address this through the level of duties, and relating that to the strength of alcohol. That is the better approach, and one that we can take now that we have left the EU.
Lord Kamall (Con)
Can my noble friend the Minister tell us whether the Treasury, or indeed any other government department, has done any modelling on the effect of the new rates and whether they would lead or incentivise drinkers to drink lower-alcohol drinks and reduce their overall consumption of alcohol?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I am sure we have taken that into account in looking at this work, and that we work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care on it. Another aspect of the reforms we are bringing forward is to provide draught relief to allow pubs and other venues to be more competitive with off-licences and supermarkets selling alcohol.
Stock Markets
Lord Kamall Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
I disagree with the noble Lord. I think that our leaving the EU presents opportunities for the City, which is exactly what the Government plan to capitalise on through the Financial Services and Markets Bill and other things that I have already mentioned. We do not just trade with Europe, and we continue to be one of the pre-eminent global financial centres in the world.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right to say that there are a number of ways of measuring the rankings of different financial centres. In the ranking to which the Question refers, one reason why Paris has overtaken London is because of the value of LVMH—one company, which has doubled its share price. It shows the challenge of making sure that we are attracting growth companies. What are the City and Government doing to make sure that we continue to attract growth companies to list in London?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right that one factor in play here is that different sectors are represented more strongly in the different stock markets, which have been affected differently by the global uncertainty and inflationary pressures that we have faced. On his point about what we are doing to attract investment into the UK, I say that two elements of the growth plan that were retained were around the annual investment and small enterprise investment—I will get the acronym wrong, but I refer to the other investment allowances. We consider that to be incredibly important. I have mentioned before a number of the changes to listing rules including, for example, dual class share structures, which have been taken forward by the FCA.
UK Green Taxonomy
Lord Kamall Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
I assure my noble friend that we will be led by science in this area. Earlier in this Question, noble Lords referred to the work of the Green Technical Advisory Group, which was set up to advise the Government on the UK green taxonomy and is informing our work in this area. There is a question about the inclusion of both gas and nuclear in the green taxonomy. The Government have not made any decisions on their inclusion, but they will engage with experts and the market before making any final decision in this area.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I also welcome my noble friend back to the Front Bench, even though the Prime Minister has fired me but not rehired me—
Noble Lords
Lord Kamall (Con)
I apologise; I was not after the violins. When I dealt with developing the green taxonomy in the European Parliament, we did not look only at companies that can certify themselves as green and ensure investors; we also looked at how to incentivise companies that are not yet green to become greener. How will the Government tackle that in developing their green taxonomy?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my noble friend’s work. I saw at first hand the energy and commitment that he brought to his roles. He is absolutely right that information is the first step on this path, and it then needs to be used to ensure that firms working in all sectors make plans for transition and action to ensure that their activities are aligned with net zero by 2050. Our green finance road map sets out the path that the Government think firms can take towards that aim.