Oral Answers to Questions
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the threat to local authorities. This is a whole-system threat. It can affect central Government, private businesses and local authorities. In October, my colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government launched the cyber assessment framework for local government, which sets a clear standard for the sector. They also provide monthly cyber clinics and support local authorities to improve collaboration, share intelligence and tackle common vulnerabilities. There has to be constant dialogue and a constant fight against this growing threat.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Ministers in this Department and in others have been generous in engaging with my repeated requests for engagement with Cheltenham’s cyber-security industry, where GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre are located. There is increasing evidence that having the private and public sectors co-located is important for our cyber-security sector. The Golden Valley development provides an opportunity to do that, and the Places for Growth scheme might give an opportunity for more public sector officials to be placed alongside one of our most influential cyber-clusters. Would the Minister be interested in having a meeting about that?
Covid-19 Inquiry
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right. Cracks in our society were exposed; this did not affect all parts of society equally. We have to learn from that and respond to it. The very concept of having a society should mean that in an emergency we pull together and try to overcome it together. The map we are producing will help us somewhat in identifying where those risks are. However, as I said in my statement, the most important thing is the underlying strength of the country and its institutions, and, in this context, specifically that of the national health service itself.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
In Cheltenham, in Sandford Park, we have an avenue of trees that were planted in honour of the covid heroes and the many victims that our town lost during the pandemic. Not far from there, there is a playground, and that playground was shut. There is nothing more dystopian for children than seeing the playground that they cherish shut. Children do not often have a voice in these kinds of discussions. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the next time there is a pandemic, we will take a much more reasonable approach to risk, as raised in the module, and that children will have a bigger voice, so that they will not suffer the mental health problems that we know so many have suffered as a result of the pandemic?
Pat McFadden
This is something the inquiry intends to look at in the future, but let us state the obvious: parents of young children in a flat with no outside space had a very different experience of the covid pandemic compared with someone with a nice big garden. That is true. I totally understand the public health decisions that were taken, but they did not affect everybody equally. That is something to ponder for the future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Georgia Gould
That £400 billion is an enormous amount of money, and we need to ensure that it is going into growth, delivering for our communities and SMEs, and delivering on our missions. We are determined to act on procurement and reduce inefficiency, and we will provide further information about that in February. We cannot take lessons from the Conservative party about cutting waste inefficiencies, given that they oversaw gross mismanagement—Lord Agnew himself referred to “schoolboy errors”—in the delivery of procurement for this country.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
The focus on public procurement will be welcomed by SMEs in the cyber-security sector in my constituency. CyNam has thousands of members, and when I talk to its SMEs they tell me that there is a real risk of our losing talent in the start-ups community to cities abroad such as Lisbon and Toronto. Can the Minister confirm that the steps being taken by the Government are good news for SMEs and Cynam?
Georgia Gould
As I have said, I firmly believe that we need to support SMEs, and I should be more than happy to speak to those in the hon. Member’s constituency and discuss the opportunities that are available. There is so much innovation and talent in this country. We need to ensure that public sector money is supporting our growth mission, and supporting good businesses in communities such as those in his constituency.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
In relation to my hon. Friend’s second point, it is right that the Church of England looks very carefully now at its procedures in the light of what has happened and been brought forward. In relation to the duty of candour, I have no idea why the Opposition Front Benchers were laughing about that. It is a hugely important reform that we are bringing forward, and it will make a significant difference across public service. We will have public servants putting the public interest above their own personal reputations and above the reputation of institutions. I hope the Opposition Front Benchers will come to support and help with the leadership required for that step change—that culture change—across public service.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
The Golden Valley development adjacent to GCHQ in Cheltenham will pay a vital role in our nation’s cyber-security. The recent confirmation of £20 million from the Government for that development is welcome, but will the Secretary of State confirm that the project will continue to feature in future iterations of the national cyber strategy?
Pat McFadden
The best thing to do when it comes to a specific place is for me to look into the exact situation and come back to the hon. Member. I assure him, as I have said several times during this session, that cyber-security is extremely important to the Government. It is not just the Government’s job; cyber-security has to be taken seriously by business and the whole of society. That is why we have the National Cyber Security Centre giving advice to bodies of all kinds to ensure that they are defended as well as possible.
G20 and COP29 Summits
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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The Prime Minister
That is an important point. This is about getting the balance right. That is why I took a pragmatic approach in the interests of this country, in order to further our interests, and decided to have frank discussions where they are necessary. I believe it is better that we meet and engage than that we are absent from the international stage.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
The Prime Minister’s focus on fighting climate change on the international stage is a welcome change from the conspiracy theories and equivocation we had under the last Government. One of the simplest ways to generate clean power in the UK is through solar panels, so will his Government take an interest in my private Member’s Bill, the sunshine Bill—the New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill, which would mandate solar photovoltaic generation on all new build homes—when it comes to the Commons on 17 January?
The Prime Minister
I have had a lot of documents put in my box over the last few weeks, and I will make sure that the hon. Gentleman’s sunshine Bill is in there, so that I am able to give him a better answer next time.
Income tax (charge)
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Jeremy Hunt
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that for decades we have had lower business investment in the UK economy than our peers. That was why, in the autumn statement a year ago, I introduced full expensing, which was the big business tax request, to make it more attractive to invest in new factories, capital, machinery, here than anywhere else in the OECD, and that was widely welcomed.
The other part of our legacy—the so-called worst inheritance since the second world war—was the fastest-growing economy in the G7, and one that the IMF said would grow faster than Italy, France, Germany or Japan over the next five years. The Government probably thought it was a clever political trick to rubbish their inheritance, but trash-talking the British economy has real- world consequences. We see the sharpest decline in consumer confidence since the beginning of the pandemic. Lloyds bank, KPMG and the Institute of Directors all saying that business confidence has plummeted. The former chief economist of the Bank of England says that the Chancellor has generated “fear and foreboding” and uncertainty among consumers, among business, and among investors in UK plc. And we see higher bond yields, leading to higher debt interest payments. Careless talk costs jobs and money, and this Government have been careless.
What every economist does, however, agree is that if we are to increase our living standards to German or American levels we need higher productivity, and that means more investment. But according to the OBR, yesterday’s measures will mean lower investment overall. Higher public investment is more than offset by lower business investment because of huge tax increases. Lloyds bank said that the increase in employers’ national insurance is a “handbrake” on investment. UKHospitality said it is a “tax on jobs” and
“makes it harder to employ people and to take a risk on recruitment and expansion.”
The Federation of Small Businesses says it will shrink small business employment, and the Institute of Directors has likened it to the poll tax.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
The shadow Chancellor mentioned hospitality. Overnight I had discussions with the local hospitality industry in Cheltenham. They had two pieces of feedback. The first was that they were very worried about some of yesterday’s announcements on reliefs and national insurance, and the second was that the Budget was not as bad as the Liz Truss Budget. I wonder whether he preferred yesterday’s Budget or the Liz Truss one.
Jeremy Hunt
I actually liked neither. I was the person who reversed the decisions made in the mini-Budget, but I will say this: at least Liz Truss wanted to grow the economy and said so explicitly. What we had yesterday is a Budget where the Government’s official forecaster said the impact would be lower growth, fewer jobs and lower investment.
We were promised the most pro-growth Government in history, but in just 17 weeks we have ended up with German taxes and French labour laws, higher taxes, higher mortgages, less investment, lower wages, lower living standards and lower growth, less money for public services on which we all depend, and less money in the pockets of working people—same old Labour, same old spin. It didn’t end well before and it won’t end well this time, either.