Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is why we will ensure that the Low Pay Commission takes into account the cost of living, and why we will close the gap between the youth rate of minimum wage and the overall rate, so that all adults can be paid a fair wage for their work.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The living standards of a 90-year-old pensioner on a £13,500 income are falling sharply this winter as a result of the Chancellor’s decision to take away the winter fuel allowance. Tomorrow, she has the chance to increase the threshold. Will she take it?

Public Spending: Inheritance

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She speaks from her experience as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, and I agree with her entirely. The charter for budget responsibility will be published. We have already introduced legislation for the new fiscal lock that we set out in our manifesto, so that we can ensure that a Government can never again do what the previous Government did, which was to overspend by £22 billion within one year.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

What a chilling political choice, to choose to take away the winter fuel allowance from a 90-year-old on an income of £10,000 a year. And that was a political choice. I want to ask the Chancellor more about productivity. She used the word once during her speech. What discussions has she had about improving productivity, which according to the Office for Budget Responsibility is still 5% lower in the public sector and has not recovered since the levels we enjoyed before the pandemic?

[Rachel Reeves]

The challenge of productivity sits across both the public and private sectors. In the last 14 years, productivity has flatlined in the public and private sectors and we need to boost both. We need to boost productivity in the public sector to ensure that we get better value for money for our public services, but we also need to improve productivity in our private sector so that we can improve living standards and have the money for our public services.

Achieving Economic Growth

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment (w), at the end of the Question to add:

“but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech fails to bring forward immediately an emergency budget to tackle the cost of living crisis or to set out a new approach to the economy that will end 12 years of slow growth and high taxation under successive Conservative Governments.”

We meet today when inflation has hit its highest level for 40 years. Every pound that people had last year can purchase only 91p-worth of goods today; that is what inflation of 9% means. Our country has a cost of living crisis and a growth crisis, with prices rising, growth downgraded and no plan for the future. None of this, though, is inevitable. It is a consequence of Conservative decisions and the direction they have taken our economy in over the past 12 years.

The Government are increasingly a rudderless ship, heading to the rocks, while they are willing to watch people financially drown in the process. Where is the urgency and the action? The time to change course is now. We need an emergency Budget to deal with the inadequacy of the Chancellor’s spring statement, with a windfall tax to help to get bills down and to help families and pensioners to weather the storm. On the day that inflation has reached a 40-year high, the Chancellor is missing in action. As energy bills and anxiety levels soar, the response from the Government diminishes in comparison.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady asks where the action is. Will she accept that today £150 is going into the bank accounts of people in council tax bands A to D from councils across this country?

[Rachel Reeves]

The action that Labour proposes is a windfall tax to take up to £600 off people’s bills. As the hon. Lady knows, energy bills have gone up 54%, by an average of £693. With all respect, £150 just does not cut it.

Labour first proposed a windfall tax on 9 January, more than four months ago, and what was the first response from a Conservative Minister? It was to insist that a windfall tax would be unfair because Shell and BP were “struggling”. North sea oil and gas producers are making £32 million a day in unexpected profits. Meanwhile, parents trying to pay their bills are going without food so that their children do not miss meals—that is struggling. We now know that each and every day the Conservatives delay introducing a windfall tax, families and pensioners are forking out £53 million more in their energy bills.

Household Energy Bills: VAT

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

We want to make Brexit work. We have this power, so let us use it now. A VAT cut is something practical that the Government could do right now, and it would be felt automatically in all our constituents’ bills. It would give security to people across our country, and I urge all hon. Members to back Labour’s motion today.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept, however, that cutting VAT on household energy bills would give a disproportionate tax break to those with the biggest houses and the deepest pockets?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

Many refugees are fleeing religious persecution. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that Christians in the middle east are on the brink of extinction, facing the worst crisis since the 13th century in the birthplace of Christianity. What are the Government doing to support Christians in the middle east and to grant asylum to those who are fleeing that persecution?

[Harriett Baldwin]

Well, indeed, it is a very sobering Christmas thought from the Archbishop of Canterbury. In fact, there are 25.4 million refugees worldwide, and the UK, of course, stands as one of the most significant supporters of refugees whatever their religious persuasion. There is a service in Westminster Abbey later today to which all colleagues are invited. I know that this is an important piece of work that the UK will remain steadfast in supporting.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

It is wonderful to hear during Export Week about Colt and Lewmar, and their fantastic work exporting overseas. It is a key priority of the Government to continue to encourage more firms to export. In fact, we have ambitious aims to have another 100,000 businesses exporting over the life of this Parliament.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

The current account deficit is at a post-war high of more than 5% of GDP, and 44% of our exports go to the European Union. It took Canada seven years to negotiate a free trade agreement with the European Union. Does the Minister agree that the last thing that exporters need, and the last thing that the one in 10 jobs that depend on our exports to the EU need, is the uncertainty that the referendum is bringing—and, indeed, that Brexit would bring—to them and to those jobs?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The last time I looked, I thought it was also Labour policy to have such a referendum, but I agree with the hon. Lady that it is very important that she and others get out the message about the value of exports and the importance for manufacturing of the UK’s membership of the single market. That is why I shall vote in the same way as her on 23 June.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I will make some progress.

For the reasons that I have given, pensioners from the National Pensioners Convention have come to Parliament today to lobby MPs to vote against the change. Let us take each issue in turn and consider who will be hit, because there has been some myth making by defenders of the granny tax about how only well-off pensioners will be affected. The truth is, those who will be hit have very modest incomes.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady refers to the “granny tax”. I know that she, like me, would really like to see older women retiring with the same income as men over time. Does she therefore accept that 60% of the effect of the freezing of the age-related allowance will be on men and 40% on women, so it should not really be referred to as a granny tax?

[Rachel Reeves]

The money involved will not alleviate the pressure on women in retirement. It will all be used to give a tax cut of £40,000 to 14,000 millionaires. The hon. Lady talks about women in retirement, and it was Government Members who voted to increase the state pension age for women with just five or six years’ notice, hitting them by up to £15,000 in lost retirement income. We will not take any lectures from them about the matter.

Women (Government Policies)

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

There are three issues. First, the speed at which we cut the budget deficit; secondly, the timing of the cuts; and thirdly—this is critical to today’s debate—whether the cuts are made fairly. I do not believe that it is fair that two thirds of the cuts fall on women. All Members of the House believe that that is unfair. That is the key point.

The cuts to women’s pensions, Sure Start, child benefit and local services are not inevitable; they are choices that the Government have made. As hon. Members have reminded us this afternoon, they are unfair choices—they penalise women pensioners, mothers, women students, women carers and women in the labour market. By choosing to cut too far and too fast, the Government have embarked on a slash-and-burn approach to the services, protections and benefits that provide the most support—in good and bad times—to women up and down the country.

The Minister will have a chance to respond shortly, but surely the question is this: where was she when the Chancellor decided to slash child benefit? Where was she when the Secretary of State for Education decided to cut Sure Start?

[Harriett Baldwin]

Will the hon. Lady confirm that the restoration of tax-free child benefit of £2,400 for the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) will be in the Labour manifesto?

[Rachel Reeves]

I will perhaps ask the hon. Lady—[Hon. Members: “Answer!”] I will answer the question, but does the hon. Lady believe it right that a family in which one person in work earns £45,000 should lose their child benefit, while a family in which two people earn a total of £80,000 still get their child benefit? If the Government’s plans for a fixed-term Parliament go ahead, the election is four years away, and as we do not know what the circumstances of that time will be, it would be inappropriate to write our manifesto now. The hon. Lady would not write hers now.

Where was the Minister when those choices were made? Given those policies, she was not campaigning and fighting for the women whom she ought to represent. If, as some have suggested, women’s equality is a blind spot for this Government, I hope that their eyes have been opened today. I hope not least that the Minister has had a chance today to hear the strength of feeling about the effect on women of the increase in the state pension age. Will she send a message of hope to the 500,000 women who face a delay of more than a year before they receive their state pension, with just five or so years to prepare? If the Government can U-turn on forests—and today they have U-turned on sentencing—surely they can listen and act to protect women approaching retirement with fear and trepidation.

Women must no longer be the shock absorbers for this Government’s cuts. I urge Ministers to move forward in a fairer way—in a way that does not turn the clock back on women’s equality, for which generations of women have fought and will continue to fight.

Industry (Government Support)

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Harriett Baldwin

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I shall give way once I have finished citing these examples. Some £3.2 million that would have supported the roll-out of broadband and £2.5 million that would have helped people at risk of redundancy to get back to work are to be cut. I could continue on this, but I shall give way.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I seek clarification, because cuts were announced by the previous Government and I want to find out whether the cuts that the hon. Lady is describing were announced by them.

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Lady makes an important intervention, because cuts were already proposed. The hon. Member for West Suffolk asked whether Labour had any plans to reduce Government spending. I can tell him that it had, and this is one example of them. But this is in response to the—