National Minimum Wage: Sports Direct
Debate between Nick Boles and Clive Efford(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Nick Boles
We have enough criminal offences; what we need is effective enforcement, and that is exactly what the 50% increase in the enforcement budget and the new powers we are giving to the HMRC enforcement team will achieve.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
My understanding is that the trade unions have made representations on behalf of staff who, for good reasons, want to remain anonymous. Should HMRC continue to ignore representations on behalf of legitimate trade unions, or should it act now and search the offices of Sports Direct?
Nick Boles
I have made it clear that if any individual complaint is to be assessed for its validity, HMRC needs to be able to follow it up. I have also made it clear that in sectors of concern, HMRC undertakes targeted enforcement activity that does not wait for a complaint. It will be listening to this debate.
Housing (London)
Debate between Nick Boles and Clive Efford(10 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Nick Boles
I unreservedly withdraw that slight to the hon. Lady’s political passion.
The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead asked a number of quite searching questions, but I must be honest: I do not have the time to answer them. Nor am I the Housing Minister, so I do not have the expertise. We shall write to her, however, to give her the full answers she deserves and copy in all hon. Members who have spoken today, but I fear that I will not be able to answer her questions fully right now.
The debate is a fascinating and challenging one. Of course no one in this House, on either side, denies that not just in London but most acutely in London this country faces a housing crisis. It is a subject to which I have given a great deal of attention and energy in the short time that I have been Planning Minister. It is important to understand that houses take a while to build. In our planning system, they take even longer to secure consent for. It is therefore not unfair to say that the seeds of most of what is happening now were laid several years ago.
The one thing that I missed in the excellent speeches of all the Opposition Members was any sense of responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in, or any sense of recognition that the seeds of the current crisis were sown not after May 2010 but decades ago, and they certainly have not been changed since.