Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Debate between Mark Pritchard and Mel Stride(1 week ago)
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Sir Mel Stride
Momentarily—I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will come to him.
What Labour has done in the meantime with this Budget is to take entirely the wrong decision, which is to tax all those hard-working people to the tune of £7 billion—a high proportion of that to transfer straight across to those who are on benefits, including scrapping the two-child cap. Those are the wrong priorities. They are about the socialist obsession with redistribution, and nothing to do with driving the incentives in the economy that grow it and make everybody better off.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
We heard from Labour Back Benchers about the previous Government’s borrowing, but that was for the country as a whole—for example, covid recovery loans. We have seen with this Budget what I would call career recovery loans, which are for the benefit of two people: the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister.
HMRC Estate Transformation
Debate between Mark Pritchard and Mel Stride(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Mel Stride
These are two relatively unrelated matters. Reconfiguring our tax offices is important for the reasons I set out in the statement. As to the hon. Lady’s point about preparedness for the very large increase that there may be in customs declarations, depending on where we land with the deal, I pointed out in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) that CHIEF has been upgraded substantially; it will be able to handle the kind of volumes that it may be necessary to handle.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
The Minister may have heard of Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, which is now closed, but is he aware of Telford Plaza in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, which is very much open, and is the largest letting in Telford and Wrekin in the last decade? It is 112,000 square feet over 13 floors, and many HMRC staff are employed there. Would he care to visit that centre of excellence, when he can find the time in his diary?
Mel Stride
I thank my hon. Friend for shamelessly promoting, quite rightly, the properties in his constituency. I would be very happy to meet him to discuss the area.