Homelessness

Debate between Oliver Heald and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend speaks with great personal experience and she is right; we must all beware of resorting to simple explanations for this complex challenge. It is about bringing together all the relevant authorities; where homelessness has been tackled most successfully, that is exactly what is happening. The other day I visited St Mungo’s, who are excellent at bringing together the police, local councils, central Government, the NHS and others. Yesterday I was at Newham, where the council is doing exactly that, with a superb supported housing centre called Anchor House.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that St Mungo’s started the campaign on rough sleeping, in the late 1980s, with a lot of Conservatives supporting it? The initiatives that John Major’s Government put in place under Sir George Young, as he then was, were the start of the work to really try to solve the problem. [Interruption.] It is not true to say that the Conservatives did not do anything in the 1990s; I was here and they did. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) was not.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. I am very happy to pay tribute to the fantastic work of St Mungo’s. As I said, it pioneered bringing together all the parts of government, central and local. That really has an impact.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Heald and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Perhaps unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am interested in any proposal that can drive economic growth in the north of England. Free ports are an interesting proposal, which we have discussed with a number of communities. We have urged them to come forward with well-thought-through business cases. We have yet to receive them from many places, but we have received one from Teesside and we will consider them carefully in future.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

6. What estimate the Government have made of the number of promoters of loan schemes subject to the 2019 loan charge who have been convicted; and if he will make a statement.

Finance Bill

Debate between Oliver Heald and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend makes exactly the point I have been advancing: not only is the approach the Opposition are taking counterintuitive, because the evidence suggests that higher corporation tax will yield less money for our public services and fewer opportunities to redistribute taxes to the most vulnerable in society, but it will send a signal that Britain is no longer open for business, which is exactly the opposite signal from the one we want to be sending to the world at this time. The point is that that is being done by the Labour party, against the evidence and for purely party political, ideological reasons.

Margaret Thatcher once said that the left would

“rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich.”—[Official Report, 22 November 1990; Vol. 181, c. 448.]

Today’s Labour Members would rather that there was less money for public services, less wealth and less opportunity, so long as they could claim that they were punishing the wealthy from the comfort of their Islington townhouses.

The public should be under no illusions: the Labour party’s economic plans will not bring in the tax receipts it claims they will, will not fund the commitments it claims to make, including on tuition fees, and will pose a real risk to public services. The only tax receipts that we can be certain will increase under a Labour Government led by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) will be the air passenger duties levied on the businessmen and women—the entrepreneurs and innovators —stampeding to leave the country after the next general election.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that every time Labour has tried tax, borrow, spend, they have left government with the country poorer and with people earning less—the wealthy and those on lower incomes? They just do not know how to run the economy.

[Robert Jenrick]

I could not agree more with my right hon. and learned Friend.

The evidence I have tried to bring forward shows that under Conservative Governments—both from 1979 to 1997, and from 2010 to the present day—the money spent on public services increased dramatically while those Governments have been able to take more tax receipts from the wealthiest in society by applying a sensible, credible economic policy and not. purely ideologically, seeking to increase taxes on the rich and our business community, which is counterproductive for everybody concerned.

In closing, I want to make a simple point about Brexit and the state of the economy. The only way Brexit can be a success is if Britain charts a course towards economic liberalism. Our survival and our success outside the European Union entail Britain becoming more competitive. We must open up markets. We must find ways of building competitive advantages, of reducing and deregulating wherever possible, of getting inward investment into the country and of embracing free trade. That means encouraging enterprise above all else.

Prisons and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Oliver Heald and Robert Jenrick

Committee Debate: 1st Sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I am a barrister, not currently practising, and I am the legal aid Minister, so I apologise, boys.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

May I also declare an interest? I am a solicitor, not currently practising, and a prison visitor at HMP Lowdham Grange in my constituency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Heald and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

As the hon. Lady knows, that Bill is part of the Government’s serious and organised crime strategy, and it includes measures to strengthen the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and enhance our enforcement powers during the fourth parliamentary Session. Of course the Government will always look at what amendments are and whether they improve the situation, and I am sure that will be case in this matter, as always.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

8. What the Crown Prosecution Service is doing to ensure that adequate support is given to vulnerable witnesses in cases of sexual abuse or domestic violence.