Discrimination in Football

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words—if we all worked together on this issue we could make a huge difference. I think social media has not been helpful, as it has been a platform on which people have been able to ply racism and hate and disguise who they are. I hate to say it, but if that has crept into the stadiums, perhaps social media is part of the issue. The Online Harms White Paper mentions a new duty of care regarding social media, because too many cowards out there think that football is a cloak to cover their intolerance. We need no more of that.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her robust statement—remarkably, she has managed to unite the House. There is a lot of money in football, including £4.5 billion in the Premier League alone. Is enough of that money flowing to stamp out abuse and promote equality, and are the fines harsh enough to help with that?

[Mims Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the money issue. Ultimately, we can put more into this and show leadership, and the two should go together. Everything should be on the table, including heavy fines for people who do not react. Above all, we should show leadership, top and bottom, at every level, and money should be no object.

Puppy Smuggling

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of puppy smuggling.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the debate. I extend my thanks to the many organisations and bodies that have been campaigning on the issue for a long time, not least the Dogs Trust. It has one of the country’s largest rehoming centres in my constituency and it is a pleasure to work with it.

This is the second time that I have introduced a debate on the topic, and I am pleased to be joined again by hon. Members from across the House. That is hardly surprising, given that there are 9 million dogs in the UK—probably more; we do not know exactly—and many more dog lovers. I also have here a book that contains the pledges of 137 Members of Parliament who are committed to stopping puppy smuggling. I hope that that conveys to the Minister how deeply concerned we are about puppy smuggling. I am not the only person in the House who has concerns about the issue being raised by a significant number of our constituents.

In the previous debate on the topic, I told the Chamber that puppy smuggling was a multimillion-pound underground—

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. There is no Minister present. Is that in order?

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[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The sitting is resumed and I invite Mr Huddleston to restart his speech.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of puppy smuggling.

Thank you, Mr Hollobone, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Once again, I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this debate today. I also extend my thanks to the many organisations and bodies that have campaigned on this issue for many years, in particular the Dogs Trust, which has one of the country’s largest rehoming centres in my constituency. It is a pleasure to work with it.

This is the second time that I have secured a debate on this topic, and I am pleased to be joined again by so many colleagues of different parties from across the House. That is not surprising, as there are 9 million dogs in the UK and many more dog lovers.

I also have with me today a book containing the pledges of more than 137 MPs, and I think more MPs will be signing today, showing that they are committed to stopping puppy smuggling. I hope that that conveys to the Minister, just how deeply concerned we are about puppy smuggling, and I know that I am not the only Member of Parliament who will say that this issue is also of great concern to my constituents.

In the previous debate that I secured on this subject, I told the House how puppy smuggling was a multi-million pound industry—an illegal trade. Hundreds of puppies are intercepted at our ports and borders each and every year. I will come on to some of the issues surrounding security at our borders a little later, but it is likely that thousands more puppies slip through the net and remain unidentified.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and also for securing this really important debate. He talked about measures being put in place at the borders. However, does he agree that it is not only important for us to put measures in place in the UK but that we need international co-operation as well, to stamp out this horrendous practice?

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I will come to some of the recommendations later on. Although much of the focus of my recommendations will be on what the UK Government can do, we also need to lobby internationally to ensure that there is fair treatment and awareness across countries.

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

On that specific point, there is a particular issue with the Irish border; it is estimated that about 30,000 puppies cross it every year. So, although we can secure the borders of the United Kingdom, we also need to co-operate with other countries, including the Republic of Ireland, to see what can be done to ensure that the likes of that land border, which is very difficult to put checks along, can still have checks in operation, and it is also particularly important to have checks at ports in the Republic of Ireland as well.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady is making another very important point. Of course, there are particular sensitivities around the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland that we are all aware of. Her point is very important, and it deserves very careful consideration, so I thank her again for raising it.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that unscrupulous dealers are now taking advantage of the pet travel scheme and that that scheme needs to end after Brexit?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point; indeed, I am just about to come on to it. I think we are suffering from the unintended consequences of some changes in schemes and programmes.

Of course, puppy smuggling at heart is an industry perpetrated by people who are motivated purely by money. They can make up to an incredible £35,000 per week by illegally transporting puppies through our borders, to be sold to unsuspecting dog lovers in the UK. The root cause of puppy smuggling seems, indeed, to be the ease with which gangs can abuse the pet travel scheme that operates across Europe, which is otherwise known as PETS.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he rightly identifies the large sums of money that can be made either by individuals or by organised crime gangs. These criminals appear to make a very fine cost-benefit calculation, which reinforces the need, expressed by a number of animal charities, to increase the penalties for maltreating animals. There should also be confiscation of vehicles, so that this business is no longer a paying business.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. Indeed, many and various recommendations have come out of this debate, and of course disincentivising this really despicable trade in every way we can is very important. Penalties, fixed fines and indeed criminal sanctions are, of course, the things that we all need to consider.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Is it not also the case that as well as increasing penalties, which I strongly agree with, it is important that those penalties are available against a wide range of offences? There has been some argument that the specified offences in the current draft of the Act are not wide enough to cover all the offences that will be committed in the process of smuggling puppies.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that point; I am sure that the Minister is listening to it and to other points, and will respond to them. As I have said, there are many things we need to focus on. Of course, changes in the law are being considered. For example, the animal cruelty sentences will not just be specifically for puppy smuggling; they will cover a wider range of offences, and we need to make sure that the range is as broad as possible.

I had said that there were some unintended consequences to PETS. In an effort to harmonise travel between European countries, PETS was relaxed in 2012. Among the changes were the removal of the requirement for a puppy to have had a rabies blood test and a lowering of the minimum age for travel from 10 months to just 15 weeks. Since the relaxation of the PETS rules, there has been a considerable rise in the number of puppies entering the UK. In 2011, just 85,000 puppies legally entered Great Britain, but by 2017 that figure had more than trebled.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing his second debate on this vital issue. My constituency is home to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, which is incredibly concerned about this particular issue. Does he agree that, rather than a reduction in the market, there needs to be a wholesale ban on the smuggling of all puppies?

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[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention; indeed, I also pay tribute to the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home for what it has done. And she makes a very valid point. All of these options need to be carefully considered.

Hundreds of puppies are intercepted at our ports each year, and although we cannot accurately assess the scale of the puppy smuggling trade—it is, after all, illegal and therefore difficult to assess fully—it is likely that the true number of puppies being smuggled into the UK reaches into the thousands and not just the hundreds.

The most recent report into puppy smuggling by the Dogs Trust has also uncovered an alarming new trend of puppies from non-EU countries, such as Serbia, being taken to EU member states, given fraudulent EU pet passports and then smuggled to the UK from there.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I recently spoke to a constituent who had driven 200 miles to pick up a French bulldog puppy. It was meant to be the perfect family pet, but after its first check it emerged that it had both heart and kidney problems, as a result of bad breeding practices at what turned out to be a puppy-farming operation. I wholeheartedly support the hon. Gentleman’s call for better regulation of puppies entering the UK.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point and I will be coming on to that issue in a moment.

Through good will and because they want to enjoy and care for an animal, families are sometimes led into doing something that is not appropriate for the animal. The animals’ circumstances can be horrible and they are not always in a great condition, which is extremely alarming.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Gentleman for giving way and I congratulate him on securing this debate. I know that he is desperately trying not to mention the “B word” in this debate; I think we can all appreciate that. However, does he agree that one of the advantages of leaving the European Union will be that it will offer an opportunity to introduce far-reaching animal welfare regulations that go beyond the existing framework, including the reintroduction of tests for rabies?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; indeed, one of the recommendations that I will come to in a moment is to introduce a test for rabies. We cannot do so at the moment, because we are in the EU, but that is an opportunity that we could take once we have left the EU. I also thank her for raising the “B word”.

Puppies should be at least seven months old before travelling to an EU member state from a third country, but the Dogs Trust found that in Serbia puppies as young as 10 weeks were given fake documentation, so that they could gain entry to the UK.

It is worth reflecting on the truly awful conditions that some of these poor animals have to endure. To evade detection, puppies are sometimes squashed into the hollow of backseats or covered in blankets and bundled under a front seat. They are often sedated to prevent them from making any noise or moving around. The Dogs Trust has told me that it has intercepted at the border puppies that have been given such heavy doses of sedative that it has taken them several days to come to. Travelling to the UK by car from countries such as Lithuania, Latvia and Serbia can take up to 30 hours, during which time puppies are given no toilet breaks, no time to exercise and very little, if any, food and water.

One case that exemplifies just how awful the trade is, is that of Lola, a French bulldog who was transported hundreds of miles from Lithuania, with temperatures in the van she was smuggled in reaching more than 40° C. She was heavily pregnant and it is illegal for a travelling pet to be pregnant. Shortly after being taken in by the Dogs Trust, she gave birth to four puppies, but it was such a difficult birth and she had been through such a traumatic experience that two of them were stillborn.

Lola has since had a number of health issues, ranging from infections to respiratory diseases, with some requiring surgery, but the Dogs Trust has managed to arrange treatment and she has been successfully rehomed. However, had Lola not been detected at the border, she and her puppies would have been advertised online and sold to an unsuspecting family who had no knowledge of the state of their health. Imagine someone bringing a new puppy home to their family, to very excited children, only to discover that it was unwell, possibly diseased and requiring treatment that could cost thousands of pounds.

The trauma of the journeys these puppies are forced to endure often leads them to develop behavioural issues and some, unfortunately, do not recover from their health issues and end up being put down. After rescuing 39 puppies from one commercial dealer, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found that six needed to be put down immediately and two thirds had congenital defects. The RSPCA has also cited an investigation that found that about 20% of puppies bought on the internet died within six months.

What can be done to put an end to this trade? There have been many suggestions and, as has been mentioned, some of the changes can be made once we have left the EU. I wish to acknowledge and show my appreciation for the fact that the Government take animal safety and welfare seriously—for example, all the work that they have done on the banning of ivory sales and third-party sales of puppies. But they could, and should, go further. For instance, I urge them to bring before Parliament as soon as possible the already promised increase to five years of the maximum sentence for animal cruelty. That would apply to puppy smuggling.

I also ask the Government to consider introducing on-the-spot fines for those caught illegally importing dogs, and I encourage them to improve the presence of border officials at our ports, to carry out more visual checks at all hours of the day, every day of the week. The current disparity in the border presence between office hours and weekend and evening slots can all too easily be exploited by smugglers.

Post-Brexit, the Government could reintroduce a requirement for dogs to have a rabies blood test and set a restriction on how soon after the test they could travel. That could increase the age at which dogs could legally enter the country to six months, say. The benefits of that in tackling puppy smuggling are twofold: it is much easier for officials to assess accurately the age of puppies once they have reached six months, and the incentive to smuggle puppies in the first place would be reduced because they are less desirable to the public once they are that bit older.

I know that the Minister is familiar with the issues we have raised; he and I have had many conversations in the past. Colleagues wish to bring up many other points, so I will finish my speech. I know that the Minister will listen carefully, and I look forward to his response.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 5.40 pm. I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 5.17 pm, and the guideline limits are five minutes for the SNP, five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister, and then Nigel Huddleston will have a few minutes to sum up the debate. Until 5.17 pm, it is Back-Bench time, and nine Members are seeking to contribute. I want everyone to be able to do so, so I am afraid there will have to be a time limit of two and a half minutes to ensure that everyone can get in.

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[Nigel Huddleston]

I just briefly say a very big thank you to so many colleagues, from all nations and all parts of the UK, who have contributed to the debate and have made so many compelling arguments and constructive recommendations in so many different policy areas where we can take action. I also thank the Minister for the content and the tone of his response. I do not doubt for one minute his sincerity. I have trust and faith that we will see action from him, but we wish to be very clear that there is a sense of urgency. There is a bit of impatience, but we will trust the Government that they will take action. We are a nation of dog lovers and animal lovers. Let us take some more action so that we can really show that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of puppy smuggling.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

As I have told the House many times—I will elaborate more at the spring statement next week—in what I now think is the unlikely event of a no-deal exit, the Government have both fiscal and monetary tools available to them to support the economy. Of course, the likely shock would be on the supply side of the economy, and we would have to be careful that fiscal interventions did not merely stimulate inflation. If we are to find ourselves in that situation, we have the firepower and the clear intent to intervene to support the economy.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

T6. I am sure that all those on the Treasury Bench agree that it is a really important responsibility of the Government to ensure that our children and young people can achieve their full potential. With that in mind, can my right hon. Friend assure me that skills and education funding will receive the priority attention it deserves in the upcoming spending round?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right. We also need to ensure that we are spending money on the right things. For example, the changes this Government have made to phonics have seen our children go from some of the poorest readers in Europe to some of the best. It is about money, but it is also about what we do with that money.

Flybmi

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

Absolutely. The reason for Flybmi going into administration is that the business has just reached the end of its road. We have an overcapacity here and the power is with the passengers in the choices they make. Those passengers who are now struggling to get home and in distress must be recognised as well, but that is the market we are in.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her statement and the reassurances she has given those who are directly impacted. Does she agree that the UK aviation industry is actually a success story? We have the third largest aviation sector in the world and we would like that to continue to be the case. Will she therefore assure me that she and her Department are working with the industry to make sure that it is planning effectively for all Brexit scenarios? Perhaps the Opposition would like to help out on this by reducing uncertainty by voting for the deal.

[Ms Ghani]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. People who are nervous about uncertainty need to vote for certainty, which would be the Prime Minister’s deal. We should not undermine the UK aviation sector. It is incredibly healthy, even though there are a number of challenges, especially in respect of how passenger numbers are going up. Interestingly, there is far more capacity than there are passengers, so shopping around for a good deal is important. What has come out of Flybmi going into administration over the weekend is that we should remember to make sure we are securing our tickets in a way that means they are insured, so that we can get compensation or refunds.

HMRC Estate Transformation

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I do not think that we are requiring all the employees at that location to travel in excess of an hour to fit in with the new arrangements. In my statement, I set out at length the various measures—I will not repeat them now—that we have taken to make sure that HMRC does the right thing.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

How can we ensure that niche skills and the expertise of key HMRC staff are retained in this move to regional hubs?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend asks a very good question that goes right to the heart of why we are making these changes. If we are to build teams of highly skilled individuals, we need the right locations in which to house them; that will lend itself to the hubs that we are rolling out, which are in locations with good housing, good education, good access to a talent pool, good transport facilities and so on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that banks must make commercial decisions on the basis of what works for them. When I visited Scotland, I found they were also keen to work with post offices and the Government’s provision to make sure that services can be delivered through the Post Office.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

Average wages in my constituency are below the national average, with many people earning the living wage. Tax rates really matter to them, so is that not precisely why we Conservatives voted for a tax cut for 32 million people, by contrast with the Opposition? Will we continue to be truly the party for working people?

[Mel Stride]

We are truly the party for working people, as my hon. Friend states, unlike the Labour party. We are the party that raised the personal allowance to £12,500 one year ahead of our manifesto commitment to do so, taking well over 4 million of the lowest paid out of tax altogether. We are also the party of the national living wage, which will go up by 4.9% this April and be of great benefit to the very lowest paid in our country.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Governor is of course absolutely right. The modelling that the Bank has done has been tested against the financial policy committee’s stress tests to ensure that, even in the worst-case scenario, our financial system would be resilient. The work that we have done since 2010—including increasing banks’ capital ratios and introducing risk-reduction strategies around banks and financial institutions—has ensured that the system will be resilient, even against the most extreme circumstance that the Bank of England has modelled.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

With regard to the deal versus no-deal scenario, does the Chancellor agree that the problem with the WTO option is that it is silent on swathes of modern British industry, so it does not cover our economy completely? Aviation is one of the most obvious sectors that is not covered by the WTO option. It is very dangerous for us to go into a situation in which those sectors are not adequately covered.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right, but I think the most telling point about this issue is the one made regularly by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade. If WTO terms are so fantastic and so good for a trading relationship, why do we need to negotiate free trade deals with all these other countries around the world? We already trade with them on WTO terms, but we clearly believe that we can do much more if we negotiate something better than WTO.

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[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Given that I gave my maiden speech in that length of time, I hope that I will be able to do the same today.

It is the responsibility of all of us in this House to deal with the world as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. We also need to recognise that the clock is ticking on this issue. We all have our own lovely ideas about a world of unicorns and rainbows, but we have to deal with the practical reality, and we have to take this seriously. Today’s debate is on the economy and business, and with that in mind I had a meeting last night with the CEOs of many organisations that employ tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in the UK. Their message was crystal clear: we must accept this deal because it provides certainty and the alternatives are too horrendous for them to imagine. They said that they were prepared for a no-deal scenario, but that their supply chains were not, which concerned them.

The message that this deal is not perfect but that it is one that we can accept is being repeated in my constituency. I have now talked to businesses that employ more than 10,000 people there. That message is coming from representatives of manufacturing industry in Droitwich and the food packaging industry in the Vale of Evesham. Again, the overwhelming opinion is that this deal is not great, but that we should accept it and move on.

At the end of the day, this deal was always going to be a compromise. It was never going to be anything else. Anyone who promised people that they would get 100% of what they wanted was, frankly, deceiving them. Any politician who believes that they are going to get 100% of what they want is in the wrong job. We have to be honest with the public. We must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) said yesterday, we cannot go into a game with the tactics of expecting to win 7-0 because, when we do that, we often find ourselves losing 3-4. That is the reality of where we are.

This deal delivers on the vast majority of things that my constituents said they wanted. We are leaving the EU, the customs union, the single market, the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy. We are also ending freedom of movement. It is not perfect, however. The backstop is a major concern for many people, which I understand. It is also a concern for me. However, I am not as concerned about it as others are, because I do not believe that we will ever need to implement it. We will work together with our EU colleagues, because it is in our mutual interests to ensure that that does not happen. By definition, a backstop has to be mutually uncomfortable, and it is. If we did not have this backstop, we would have another one.

There is now a dividing line in this House between two camps. One contains those who believe that by voting down this deal we will end up with something better, whatever that might be—a second referendum, a general election or a renegotiation of the deal. The other camp contains those, including myself, who believe that, if we vote down this deal, worse things will happen. I believe the worst thing that could happen is defaulting to WTO rules under a no-deal scenario.

I do not believe for one minute that leaving the European Union will take us to some kind of tropical paradise, but nor do I believe that it will lead us to an icy wasteland. The UK economy is incredibly resilient, as we have seen over the past two years. We can cope with a lot of the things that are thrown our way, but why should we make it more difficult? We are now faced with the certainty and clarity of a deal. Business wants us to accept that deal. Not everyone in my constituency is happy with it, but most people are saying, “Just accept it. Let’s get on with it and move forward.” I am with them on that, because the one thing I cannot and will not do is risk jobs in my constituency in the hope that something better might come along at some point. I take incredibly seriously my responsibility as an MP to ensure that my constituents are employed in safe and secure jobs, and that is why I will be voting for this deal on Tuesday.

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[Dr Fox]

Again, that is exactly the same pattern. We want a continuation of good economic management for the United Kingdom that continues to provide jobs and prosperity in our country and record investment in its infrastructure. I can forecast that if the Labour party was ever to take office with its crazy spending plans, the financial and economic consequences for the prosperity of this country would truly be catastrophic.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I appreciate the positive and optimistic picture that the Secretary of State paints of the UK economy and our potential. Does that not demonstrate that it is always better to have a Conservative Secretary of State for International Trade flying round the world and talking Britain up, rather than a Labour one talking Britain down?

[Dr Fox]

Talking Britain down is what people do when they cannot bear the fact that the truth tells us that our economy is doing well, that exports are at record levels, that inward investment into the United Kingdom is at record levels and that unemployment is at a record low level and employment at a record high level. Labour Members hate all those facts because they go against their basic narrative that Britain is failing and somehow needs to be rescued by an utterly inept Labour party.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

International evidence does not show that, but let me give the hon. Gentleman a figure. The top 1% have received an increase in share of total income—from 5.7% in 1990 to 7.8% in 2016-17. That was identified by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

What I do not understand—if the hon. Gentleman really believes this—is why, for 99.3% of the time that the last Labour Government were in power, the top rate of income tax was 40%, whereas for the duration of this Government, it has been either 45% or 50%. Does Labour say one thing in power and a completely different thing in opposition for purely opportunistic, party political and vote-winning purposes?

[Peter Dowd]

A Conservative Member of Parliament talking about opportunism! It is not quite as bad as the Liberal Democrats talking about opportunism, I grant you, but there we are—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Gentleman should worry about working people in his constituency who, overall, are £800 a year worse off after the longest fall in wages since the Napoleonic era—I suspect that one or two Government Members were here at the time. The Prime Minister has stood staring at the Brexit menu for two years while her Cabinet devours itself in the queue behind her.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

No doubt, the hon. Lady will welcome the additional money allocated to the NHS to reflect the increasing demand. I point out that under the plans proposed by the Labour party, which would mean fewer businesses, fewer jobs and less tax revenue, there would be less money going into the NHS and the hon. Lady’s local services.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

There is strong public appetite for increased spending not only on the NHS, but on education, defence and a whole host of other areas, and, if the polls and all the petitions are to be believed, there is a strong public appetite to pay more tax in order to finance those spending increases. Will the Minister bear that in mind in the upcoming Budget?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am sure my hon. Friend will recognise that we are not going to announce the contents of the Budget at today’s Treasury questions, but I point out that we are a Government who believe in low taxes: we have reduced taxes on basic rate taxpayers by £1,000. Of course, as well as putting that extra money into the NHS, my job as Chief Secretary is to make sure we get value for money from every penny we spend, and that is why we are developing a 10-year plan. We are improving the use of technology and we are getting better value for money from the drugs budget as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

We are looking very closely at this policy area, not least in respect of the Matthew Taylor review of the different ways in which individuals choose to work. The Government’s overriding objective is to make sure that the way an individual works is reflected in the way they are taxed, and that they are taxed properly.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

T4. Some of my constituents have reported ongoing confusion about child benefit. Some who admit that they have claimed child benefit inadvertently have not been told of the money that they owe to HMRC until interest has accumulated for as long as five years. What more can HMRC do to communicate errors more quickly?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I can reassure him that HMRC has written to a total of 800,000 people to inform them of the issue he has raised, which is also set out and made clear on the very first page of the child benefit application form. I can also reassure him that we will review this policy area in the current period to see how we can make changes going forward.