Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

A constituent of mine on jobseeker’s allowance who is actively seeking work was recently made to give up some of the volunteering he was doing. What good is an arbitrary 16-hour-a-week limit on volunteering by JSA recipients when what really matters is that they do whatever is best to increase their chances of getting a job?

[Mr Hoban]

There is no 16-hour-a-week limit on voluntary work, so let me slay that myth first. The important thing is that the jobseeker is actively seeking work, and advisers have some flexibility on that, but volunteering should not get in the way of trying to find a job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I know that Ministers want to be on the side of those who work hard to get on, including a constituent of mine—about whom I have written to the employment Minister—who worked hard for many years before undergoing chemotherapy for blood cancer. Two years ago he spent a month between jobs, during which time he chose not to claim benefits, but he has been told by the benefits office that, as a result of this gap in his contribution history, he is not eligible for contributory employment support allowance. Will the Minister meet me so that we can examine this case and try to make sure that rigid bureaucracy does not prevent us from helping people in such situations?

[Mr Hoban]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the case in more detail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

As I have said a few times today—I will continue to say it—this process was put in place by the previous Government, a Government the hon. Gentleman supported. What we are looking to do is ensure that those people who can work get the support they need to get into work, rather than abandoning them to a lifetime on incapacity benefit, which he seems to think is the better option.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

T5. Is the disabilities Minister satisfied that the proposed descriptors for the personal independence payments adequately recognise the impact of Crohn’s disease, colitis and irritable bowel syndrome on the daily lives of our constituents who live with those conditions and the invisible disabilities that they endure?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I just point out to the hon. Lady that the last Labour Government ruled out introducing a bank levy. That levy is raising £2.5 billion, and it will raise £10 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament. I think it is right that banks should pay a fair contribution for the risks they have posed for the UK economy, and I would have thought she would have welcomed both the bank levy and the fall in youth unemployment last month.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Youth unemployment is clearly more acute in some parts of the country than in others. Why does the Minister think youth unemployment over the last two years has fallen in over a third of the country, including Bolsover, but not in some constituencies, such as Bradford West, where it has increased by 500?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes the important point that the pattern of youth unemployment varies across the country. It is important that the necessary support is in place to help young people looking for work, and the Work programme is likely to help 100,000 young people this year. That is just one of the practical measures we are taking to tackle the problem of youth unemployment—which, as the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) said, started under the last Labour Government.

Eurozone (Contingency Plans)

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Gentleman once again reminds us how important stability in the eurozone is—the situation could have a significant impact on the UK economy, which is why it is important that the Greeks resolve their problems in conjunction with eurozone member states. However, let me make this quite clear again: we do not want to be part of that bail-out.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

How does the Government’s disposition on these matters differ between the case of Greece and that of other strained but larger or more closely integrated economies, such as, say, Spain?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend will of course recollect that one reason why we made a bilateral loan to Ireland was the particularly close relationship between the UK and Irish economies. That relationship did not exist with Portugal, and it does not exist with Greece, so there is a different approach. It is important to remember that Greece was bailed out by eurozone countries, and that the bail-out of Greece should continue to be done by them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the mis-selling of PPI. This happened under the regulatory regime that his colleagues set up when they were in government. One aspect of the reforms that we are introducing by setting up the financial conduct authority is to give the regulator more powers to intervene earlier to prevent that sort of scandal happening again.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Given the Chancellor’s concern for the use of taxpayers’ money, will he really allow members of GP consortia boards to be paid as much as £30,000 a year for just one day’s work a week?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The legacy left by the previous Government was that youth unemployment was continuing to rise. The other problem with which the Opposition left us was that our children and grandchildren would have to pick up the tab for Labour’s mismanagement of our economy. We need to get the deficit down to create the foundations for economic growth to ensure that more young people are back in work.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has certainly received representations from me on such measures, including about the estimated loss to the Exchequer of more than £100 million due to tax avoidance through low value consignment relief on VAT. Will the Minister at least confirm that the Government’s conclusions on that will be shared with us in tomorrow’s Budget?

[Mr Hoban]

I encourage my hon. Friend to be patient.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on the problem. When the previous Government entered into arrangements to bail out RBS and Lloyds, they limited the period of their involvement in the bonus regime. That is why we had to take action this year and why we have engaged with banks through project Merlin to achieve restraint on bank bonuses. We will make an announcement in the next week.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the Chancellor on extracting a further £800 million from the banks this morning. Will he take this opportunity to rule out any reduction in his permanent bank levy, should it turn out to raise more money than expected?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I thank him on behalf of the Chancellor for his congratulations on the levy. As he recognised, the levy is a permanent feature, not a one-off tax like the previous Government’s bank payroll tax. It will raise more than the bank payroll tax did in its year in operation, on a net basis. We are committed to raising the levy from the banks over the life of this Parliament.

Finance Ministers’ Meeting (Ireland)

Debate between Mark Hoban and Duncan Hames

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The crisis is around the banking system in Ireland—it is not a fiscal crisis. Of course, we almost had to learn the lessons of failure to regulate the banking system. The Government therefore introduced radical reforms to strengthen the stability of the banking sector in the UK.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Does the Financial Secretary accept that it would be a disservice to families and businesses in Ireland to exaggerate their economic woes, just as it would be in this country?

[Mr Hoban]

We are in difficult times and it is best to focus on what can be done to help the Irish economy rather than engage in a debate about statistics on Ireland’s current economic performance.