Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Olney and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is quite right. Because of our plan, the economy has, after a tough few years, turned the corner. Inflation has fallen from over 11% to 3.2%, and it is forecast to return back to target in just a few months—a year ahead of expectations. That is why we have been able to cut people’s taxes. As he mentions, the tax cut is worth £900 for an average worker. That is part of our plan to end the long-term unfairness of the double taxation on work.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

Q3. Four years ago, my constituent Juliana was drugged and raped by her then boyfriend. After his conviction, Juliana was advised that reading a transcript of his trial would help her to come to terms with her experience. But when she requested that transcript, she was told that she would have to pay more than £7,000. Astonishingly, Juliana is not alone. I have heard about victims who have been quoted fees of up to £22,000 just to read trial transcripts that are part of their own story. Justice should not have a price tag. The Liberal Democrat amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill would give all victims the right to read sentencing remarks and summings-up free of charge. Julian is here in the Gallery today, and she asks whether the Prime Minister will support that amendment. Will he look her in the eye and say yes?

[The Prime Minister]

I am extremely sorry to hear about Juliana’s case, and my sympathy is with her and her family. We are committed to improving victims’ access to court transcripts to help them move on and rebuild their lives. We already offer a free service to families of homicide victims, for example. That is why we have already committed to a one-year pilot to help identify the current demand and to inform our next steps. Alongside this, we are actively looking at other options to immediately reduce the costs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Olney and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my right hon. Friend entirely. We know this because not only has the Leader of the Opposition opposed the scheme, but he has been clear that even when the scheme is implemented and working, he would still scrap it. That tells us everything we need to know: on this issue, Labour’s values are simply not those of the British people. There is only one party that is going to stop the boats: the Conservative party.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

Q10. On this Conservative Government’s watch, Thames Water has dumped over 72 billion litres of sewage into London’s rivers, all while racking up multi-billion-pound debts, and it is now reported that Thames Water could go bust any day. Despite this, the Government are still refusing to publish their contingency plans for the collapse of our country’s biggest water firm. Does the Prime Minister believe that Thames Water will still exist by the end of the year—yes or no?

[The Prime Minister]

It would not be right for me to comment on individual companies, but what I can say is that our ambitious storm overflow reduction plan is backed by £60 billion of capital investment. We now monitor every single storm overflow across England, and we have legislated to introduce unlimited penalties on water companies that breach their obligations. The independent regulator and the Environment Agency have the powers they need to hold water companies, wherever they are, to account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Olney and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his continued campaign to improve Torbay Hospital. I am delighted to reconfirm the Government’s commitment to major new facilities there as part of our new hospitals programme, and I look forward to further work progressing in the months ahead.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

Q7. Under the Conservatives, so much of the UK’s potential is going untapped, with anaemic growth, falling living standards and declining international competitiveness. Just this morning, a solar power company developing an innovation from Oxford University said that the UK is the “least attractive” market in which to base its business due to a lack of incentives. That is a home-grown company that could have provided well-paid green jobs—lost to this country thanks to the Government’s lack of an industrial strategy. Why does the Prime Minister think that each week more and more promising businesses choose to leave the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady obviously missed the comments by the International Monetary Fund yesterday upgrading our growth performance, she obviously missed the survey of thousands of global chief executives just recently placing the UK as their No. 1 European investment destination, and it sounds like she also missed my trip to Japan last week, when we announced £18 billion of new investment in the UK economy.

Financial Statement

Debate between Sarah Olney and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

Households are facing the biggest hit to living standards on record, and they were looking to the Chancellor today to offer them some hope. We know from the OBR forecast that the Treasury will take an additional £13 billion in VAT thanks to inflation. Will the Chancellor tell us why he has not announced the emergency cut that the Liberal Democrats have called for, which would put £600 back into the pockets of the average family? VAT is an unfair tax that puts up prices for every single family in the UK, and makes up half of all the taxes paid by the poorest households compared with less than a fifth of those paid by the richest.

[Rishi Sunak]

I think it wrong to suggest that there has been a VAT windfall. If the hon. Lady looks at the numbers in the OBR forecast, she will see that its projection for VAT receipts in the forthcoming year is lower than its previous projection in October. We are helping working families, with a £6 billion tax cut which will put £330 into the pockets of 30 million workers across the United Kingdom.

Economic Update

Debate between Sarah Olney and Rishi Sunak

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

Of course, we take the advice of the chief medical officer in this regard and we will continue to do so. We have been absolutely clear that the NHS will get whatever support financially it needs from the Government to help get us through what will be a very challenging time. We are considering all measures to increase the capacity of the NHS to respond to this, and indeed provide the support to those on the frontline who are going to deal with a very difficult few months.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I obviously welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to making sure that jobs are saved and that people can stay in work, but I wonder whether he agrees that by structuring his package around loans rather than grants, he actually loses some control over what the money is spent on. Therefore, he cannot be certain that the money is going to be spent most effectively in pursuit of this objective.

[Rishi Sunak]

It is not just loans; it is loans and grants and tax relief on business rates, as well as deferral of tax payments through time to pay and reimbursement for statutory sick pay. Across the piece, it is a series of different interventions, all of which will be effective at doing one fundamental thing: improving the cash flow in the short term of businesses to help them bridge through what will be a temporary dislocation, so that they can emerge on the other side and we do not lose for the long term that productive capacity and lose those jobs.