Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and John Whittingdale(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
It is a particular pleasure to follow the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), and four fellow members of the Committee.
I make it clear that I strongly support the increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. I fear that that may not be enough and that we will have to spend more if we are to maintain our security against the threat that is now clear. I therefore accept that part of the funding of that needs to come from ODA, although I feel the pain of both the Chair of the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). That makes it even harder to swallow the £9 billion bill we face paying to maintain a base on the Chagos Islands.
I will focus specifically on soft power. I welcome the establishment within the FCDO of the Soft Power Council; it is very important that strengthening hard power should not be at the expense of Britain’s soft power. A number of Members have already talked about the BBC World Service, which is one of our great assets. It was very welcome that in the Budget, the Government increased their contribution by £32 million, but it was concerning that the BBC recently announced a reduction in its contribution of £6 million, with the loss of 130 jobs. While all 42 language services are being maintained, the World Service defence committee has already pointed out some of the damage that those reductions will do, with the loss of regional editors, science coverage and business programmes. I am particularly concerned about the letter that the Chair of our Committee received a few days ago from the director general, in which he said:
“In the last few days we have been asked to prepare for further engagement with the FCDO on the impact of the reduction in Overseas Development Spending.”
I would like the Minister to assure us that there will be no reduction in the Foreign Office’s funding of the BBC World Service. Indeed, I hope he will give serious consideration to the BBC’s request that in the longer term, the Government consider taking on the full funding of the World Service.
We on the Committee have also heard from the British Council, another aspect of soft power. It is absurd that the loan of £250 million given to the British Council has to be renewed each year, creating huge uncertainty. I hope that a solution can be found to put that funding on a long-term basis.
I finish by referring to an issue of huge concern to me and many others: media freedom. Both this Government and the previous Government have very good records on supporting media freedom around the world; we set up the global Media Freedom Coalition. However, as the Minister knows, media freedom is under huge threat. I urge the Government to continue to press the cases of Jimmy Lai, a British citizen imprisoned in Hong Kong, and of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British citizen imprisoned in Egypt. The Minister also knows that in Ukraine, 97 journalists have been killed since 24 February 2022, 12 while on duty, and the most recent withdrawal of funding—that of USAID—will put at risk over half the media outlets that are bravely reporting what is happening in Ukraine. I hope that the Minister can provide support to them, too.
Income tax (charge)
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and John Whittingdale(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before the right hon. Member responds, interventions are a healthy part of debate, but the hon. Lady should draw the attention of the Member by speaking loudly in asking for an intervention.
Sir John Whittingdale
Every country in the world faced enormous challenges. The record of the Conservative Government in tackling those challenges bears comparison with any other country. That cannot be diminished. I will say a little bit more about the NHS in particular as I move forward with my remarks.
I saw that Alastair Campbell tweeted in defence of this particular Budget. He said:
“It was a very Labour Budget”.
I would certainly agree with that. It put up spending massively, borrowing massively and tax massively—to that extent, it was a very Labour Budget. In the first 30 minutes of the Chancellor’s speech yesterday she did not actually make any announcements; she simply tried to justify some of the measures she was going to introduce by talking about the fictitious black hole. The shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash, has already adequately exposed why that is a fiction, and the Office for Budget Responsibility was unable to find any evidence for the figures that she quoted.
Let us be clear: tax and spend is a matter of choice. It was the choice of this Government to break all the promises that they made at the last election. It was their choice to break their manifesto commitments not to increase national insurance contributions. They said that they would not increase tax on working people, but in many areas the measures that they have introduced will have a significant impact on working people.
The denial that there was a tax bombshell to come is extraordinary, given that they subsequently announced a £40 billion one, which will result in the tax burden in this country rising steadily to what will be the highest ever on record. Yet this is a Government who took office saying that their priority would be to fuel growth. I can say to the Minister that he cannot fuel growth by punishing the businesses that will be responsible for creating the jobs and wealth of the future. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast following the Budget shows that growth is forecast to fall steadily.
I want to speak about one or two of the tax choices that have been made—they, too, are a matter of choice. It was up to the Chancellor to decide how to raise the extra revenue. Even before the Budget, we already heard of one extremely damaging, painful decision—the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance—to save money by taking it away from pensioners across the country. I have received many emails expressing great disappointment that the Chancellor pressed ahead with that measure and did nothing yesterday to reduce its impact.
It is primarily businesses that will pay the price in this Budget. The increase in employers’ national insurance contributions is estimated to cost them £25 billion, which represents £615 more for every single employee of a business over the threshold. What is the result? If the cost of employing people increases, that can have only two consequences: lower wages and fewer jobs. Each of those will hit working people. On top of that, businesses will face an increase in the national minimum wage. That will hit the businesses that are already finding it hardest to survive. It will impact on the care sector and the hospitality sector—already under enormous pressure. The decision to increase the national minimum wage for young adults by 16% will make it even harder for those people to find jobs.
Just 10 days ago the Government heralded the investment summit, which was supposed to persuade international investors that this was a country they should want to invest in. Yet a week later, we have higher capital gains tax and higher stamp duty, and a war declared on non-doms. Instead of investment coming into this country, already we are seeing the flight of people living here—the entrepreneurs on whom our future success depends are leaving in droves.
Sir John Whittingdale
The investment summit announced a lot of investment for which the Conservative Government were actually responsible. Let us wait and see. The Budget was yesterday. Businesses will have to look very carefully at their plans, but I do not expect them to do so in a mere few hours. I am happy to have this debate with the hon. Gentleman again in a few weeks’ time once we have seen the impact of the measures that have been announced.
There are two specific measures that I want to touch on because they have a particular impact on my constituents. One of them, which has been mentioned a number of times in this debate, is the removal of agricultural property relief. The Country Land and Business Association estimates that that will affect 70,000 businesses. Family farms in particular will feel the impact worse. It is hardly surprising that the president of the National Farmers’ Union has said:
“This Budget not only threatens family farms but will also make producing food more expensive… The shameless breaking of those promises on Agricultural Property Relief will snatch away much of the next generation’s ability to carry on producing British food, plan for the future and shepherd the environment.”
This is a measure that the Labour party said it would not introduce, but it has broken that promise and is now proposing to introduce it, with enormous damage not just to farmers but to food security and our environment.
The second measure that I would like to touch on—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, I see you have acquired Speaker’s cough. I will heed your warning, but I want to mention VAT on private schools. In my constituency I have three small independent schools: Heathcote school in Danbury, Elm Green in Littleborough and Malden Court school. The parents who send their children there are not rich; they make huge sacrifices. In Essex we are very fortunate to have really good grammar schools. Those parents make that sacrifice to help their children hopefully get into the grammars, but they will not be able to continue if there is 20% increase in fees as a result of the imposition of VAT. They will withdraw their children and those schools will be threatened with closure. The consequence is that the children will need to be placed in state schools, which are already under huge pressure. My constituency is growing rapidly, and there is enormous pressure on schools. This will simply make it worse. This policy is simply vindictive and will do enormous damage.
Very quickly, I note that the Minister for Secondary Care, the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) has come back into the Chamber, and she would be disappointed if I did not say that I welcome the hospital building programme in the Budget and the announcement of new money. However, once again I reiterate that a hospital in my constituency is threatened with closure. We have been promised a new one for 30 years or more, under both my Government and the Government before that. She was good enough to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and me the other day, so that we could make the case. If she does hold this money, I hope that she might be able to direct some of it to my constituency.
This Budget is one of the worst I have heard in all my time in this place. It will do enormous damage. I am grateful for this opportunity to put that on the record.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and John Whittingdale(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for highlighting the Policy Exchange report, and I agree that the UK should not enter a subsidy race with other industrial nations. We already have our advanced manufacturing plan, which, obviously, focuses on advanced manufacturing, and the Chancellor is also looking at green industries, life sciences, creative industries and digital technology. Those are all areas in which we know we can grow as well. I have spoken about the record levels of investment we get into the UK. Last autumn, when the Chancellor announced full expensing, more than 200 business leaders and the CBI said that that was a game changer and the single most transformative thing we could do to fire up the British economy. We will continue to be competitive and ensure that we continue to be the third country, after the USA and China, in securing inward investment—of course, beating our European counterparts.
Energy Bill Relief Scheme Regulations 2022
Energy Prices (Domestic Supply) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022
Energy Bill Relief Scheme (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and John Whittingdale(2 years, 4 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Ghani
We will make sure that that is in writing. The regulations have been laid, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; we want to make sure that those benefits are passed through.
A question was raised about the £100 payment, which comes on top of the £400 discount. This is what we are here to do today: to make sure that people have all the support they need. The regulations are here to support economic growth and ensure that firms do not close down and redundancies do not happen. The scheme is fundamentally there to support those people and public services. I believe that an impact assessment was published for the overall EBRS scheme across the UK, along with Energy Prices Act 2022. I will make sure that this is emailed to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, as well, so that he can look at that.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I think the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun also wanted further details of how the alternative fuel payment might be distributed, particularly to those who, for instance, rely on heating oil. As Maldon has a number of people in the same position as those in Scotland, I would be grateful if the Minister included me in any additional information that her Department is able to supply.
Ms Ghani
I shall make sure that all the Committee members are copied into all correspondence that is circulated, so that they may be across all the information needed. It is best that we continue that in correspondence.
Let me touch on some of the issues raised. On data, I believe that the quote was “looks like”. Let me be clear: the intention is that the data can be used if required for the purposes of assessing the performance and effectiveness of the scheme, assurance, error checking, and the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of fraud. BEIS does not hold or process personal data such as name or address, or communication data such as email addresses, and the Government will ensure that the consumer’s privacy is safeguarded. Any changes to how consumer data is used will be communicated via the privacy notice, which is kept under regular review.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and John Whittingdale(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Ghani
There is indeed a race to secure critical minerals, especially when countries such as China own so much of them. By 2040, the world is expected to need four times as many critical minerals as we can access today for clean energy technologies, but there is work under way in collaboration with international partners and in the UK with the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and John Whittingdale(9 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
T3. The whole House will have been appalled by the mindless destruction of cultural heritage sites by terrorists in the middle east. The ancient Iraqi city of Hatra is just one of the many historic sites cruelly targeted as part of a concerted campaign to destroy the history and heritage of us all. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government are doing all they can to prevent the senseless destruction and exploitation of our ancient history?
Mr Whittingdale
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that matter. Obviously, our first priority is the human cost of these terrible conflicts, but the devastation to some of the most important cultural sites in the world is also of profound concern. We are uniquely placed to assist with this. We are developing a cultural protection fund to support the protection of cultural heritage, and I hope that we can give further details shortly.