Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nigel Mills and Andrew Bingham(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
3. What steps he has taken to increase the number of younger workers subscribing to pension schemes.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
16. What steps he has taken to increase the number of younger workers subscribing to pension schemes.
Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)
Debate between Nigel Mills and Andrew Bingham(11 years ago)
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Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which is hugely important to our constituents, on what is probably one of the prevailing issues that they face. On his point about previous accessions, does he agree that the last Government’s lamentable failure to control immigration has left a long and large shadow of memory across our constituents’ minds? They are fearful that it will all happen again. Some of those fears may be unjust, but the concerns are occupying our constituents’ minds greatly.
Nigel Mills
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. It can be no surprise that the public have great concern about what might happen when new nations have unfettered access to free movement, given that our experience with other eastern European nations gaining such freedom is that so many of their nationals chose to come to this country. I accept that most of them chose to come here to work, but that leaves us with the fundamental question of how to deal with that when unemployment in this country is still far higher than we would like.
Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living
Debate between Nigel Mills and Andrew Bingham(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be invited to speak in the debate, and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), who made a passionate if somewhat partisan speech. The Opposition’s problem is that out there in the country no one believes a word that they say about this topic. We all know of their record during 13 years of government, but, just in case a reminder is needed, let me point out that when they took office in 1997 the price of a litre of unleaded petrol was about 56p, which included 43p of duty and VAT. When they left office nearly a year ago, the price was about £1.20 a litre, including tax amounting to about 75p. We hear talk of fuel duty rising “ahead of inflation” or “in real terms”, but if the price of petrol had risen in line with RPI throughout Labour’s term of office, it would have been 80p a litre at the last election rather than £1.20. That is the hike that we have all had to suffer.
As the contents of my inbox make very plain, fuel price rises are a real problem for people and businesses throughout my constituency. In many areas people have no alternative to driving a car if they want to go to work, but the fuel price rises are preventing them from being able to afford to go to work—let alone the damage that they are doing to all manner of small businesses all over the constituency. The Government must take action in next week’s Budget.
Andrew Bingham
As a fellow Derbyshire Member, I agree with everything that my hon. Friend is saying. Does not the rural character of both his constituency and mine, High Peak, exacerbate the pressures and difficulties experienced by small businesses, in particular?
Nigel Mills
I am grateful for that intervention from a fellow Derbyshire Member, and I entirely agree with him.
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is no longer in the Chamber, said that all Governments had chosen to increase fuel duty over the years. We must accept that it was our Government who, nearly 20 years ago, introduced the fuel duty escalator, but the aim then was to encourage people to improve their behaviour by driving smaller and more fuel-efficient cars and considering alternative means of transport. I think we can tell the Government that we have all got that message. Many of us have started using diesel and have bought cars with smaller engines in an attempt to cut our spending on fuel. I know that many of my constituents have done that. However, the scope for such measures is limited, as many people still cannot afford to drive a car. If the nudge is the order of the day, I think that we have got the message and do not need any more nudging.