Outcome of the EU Referendum

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we must accept the result—the Cabinet has and I think that everybody should—but what has to happen now is translating that result into action and choosing the correct pathway to leave the European Union and the correct relationship to have with it. That is going to take a lot of complex decision making by the new Government, and my hon. Friend obviously has a very clear view about what that should involve. It will involve a lot of separate and different decisions, but he is absolutely right to say that the decision must be accepted.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of my constituents are European citizens and they are fearful for their future. The Prime Minister has talked about a group of officials set up to determine what Brexit will mean. Can he give any comfort to these people? If not now, will he give a timetable for when they will know how they can apply to remain in the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that many people will be watching this with exactly the same question that the hon. Lady has asked. The technically correct answer is that while we are members of the European Union there is no change in the rights or the circumstances of people coming to live and work in Britain, or in those of Britons going to live and work in other European Union countries. I would add to that that the leave campaigners were fairly clear that they wanted to protect the rights of people who are already here who have come to live, work and study, but obviously the final clarification of that and of the rights of British people living in other parts of the European Union will have to wait for the complex negotiations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that the President will take all of these calculations into account before saying anything that he might have to say. Let me just make two points. First of all, this decision is a decision for the British people, and the British people alone. We are sovereign in making this decision. Personally, I believe that we should listen to advice from friends and other countries, and I struggle to find a leader of any friendly country who thinks we should leave. My second point is that, when it comes to the United States, it is worth looking at what so many Treasury Secretaries have said, going back over Republican or Democrat Administrations. It may not be the determining factor for many people—or indeed for any people—but listening to what our friends in the world say is not a bad idea.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q13. The average property price in my borough of Hackney is £682,000, the median lower quartile rent for a two-bedroom flat for a month is £1,500, and overcrowding and demand for social housing are the highest I have seen in 20 years. Will the Prime Minister tell my constituents how on earth the Housing and Planning Bill is going to help them?

[The Prime Minister]

It is going to help them because we are building starter homes for the first time for people to buy, we are extending the right to buy to housing association tenants so they can buy homes—[Interruption.] I notice Lady Nugee giving us the benefit of her wisdom, but many people in her constituency would love to buy a council house or a housing association house. We also have the Help to Buy scheme, which is helping many people get on the housing ladder, and shared ownership as well. All of those things will help. Since 2010, 101,000 homes have been built in London, including 67,000 affordable homes. We need to build many more and to make them accessible to people who work hard and do the right thing. That is whose side we are on.

Panama Papers

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We took a whole series of actions in the Budget, and of course we have the diverted profits tax, which is a tremendous weapon for making sure these companies pay their tax in the jurisdictions where they are rightly earning the money. This tool of being able to exchange tax information and having a common reporting standard, which is what we set in train in 2013, will make the biggest difference.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the main benefits of the journalism that uncovered the Panama papers was that it shone sunlight on areas where some people did not want it to go. The Prime Minister makes great play of saying that his Government have done a great deal to improve corporate tax transparency, but this is nowhere near enough. When is he going to step up and make sure that corporates publish their tax information so that everybody—the public—can see where tax is being paid?

[The Prime Minister]

I am not saying that we have a perfect record, but this Government have done more than any previous Government to make this happen. I will answer the hon. Lady very directly: of course our system is based on full disclosure by companies to the Revenue but with a basic deal of taxpayer confidentiality between companies and the Revenue. That is the way our system and most other systems work. That is why the common reporting standards and the exchange of information between tax jurisdictions is so important, to make sure that these companies are telling the truth to us and to other jurisdictions. Only when that happens will we be able to recover the money.

G7

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are doing two things. One is working internationally to get that done; the OECD has been leading a piece of work on base erosion and profit shifting, trying to stop companies shifting their profits artificially around the world. The 90 countries that have signed up to automatic tax information exchange will give that work real teeth, but we have not waited for that. In this country in the last Budget the Chancellor introduced what was called the diverted profits tax, so that if we see a company that is making lots of money in the UK but not paying taxes in the UK, we can present it with a tax bill. So we are taking international action but we are not waiting for it here domestically. This is changing the culture of the companies concerned.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s conversations with President Buhari and the commitment to tackle Boko Haram in Nigeria. He also mentioned that he had had discussions about tackling corruption, which is obviously a serious issue. Can he give us more detail about those discussions and actions?

[The Prime Minister]

I hope the hon. Lady agrees that President Buhari’s election is a very important moment for Nigeria, because he won the election even though he was facing some pretty overwhelming odds in relation to what his opposing candidate’s party was doing, if I may put it that way in the most gentle form. President Buhari has a track record of fighting corruption and has put it at the top of his agenda. His speech at his inauguration was a model of doing that. He needs to sort out corruption in the army and in the oil department and industry. What Britain is trying to say is, “We are there as your partner and want to help you, so the more we can do to help you clean up this corruption, the better for people not only in Nigeria, but throughout the region and here too.”