Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Priti Patel

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

T7. In the west midlands, violent crime is up 27%, the homicide rate is rising and, in Birmingham, drug crime is at a six-year high. The Home Secretary admitted last week that some communities had been “neglected and left behind”. Given the rises in violent and drug crime in Birmingham, will she accept that her comments include my city, and will her Department finally step up to the plate and do something about this?

[Priti Patel]

I had the privilege of visiting the west midlands two weeks ago and participating in an early-morning drugs raid. The scourge of serious and violent crime is absolutely one that we have to deal with, and this Government are fully committed to that. We are providing all the necessary resources—the money, the equipment and the powers—to the police to enable them to get on top of this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Priti Patel

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has drawn attention to two important facts: the fact that unemployment has fallen in his constituency and there are more people in work there, and the barriers—particularly mental health conditions—that prevent people from working. We will be launching a new Work and Health programme, and looking into how we can integrate services to provide the right kind of support to help such people to return to work.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

Between June 2011 and June 2015 there were 10,920 referrals to the Work programme in my constituency, 21% of which resulted in jobs. Those figures would improve, and employment would be further reduced, if the assessment of claimants that is carried out at the beginning of the process were more adequate and consistent, and ensured that crucial characteristics such as drug problems were not missed. When will the Government introduce changes to the assessment process?

[Priti Patel]

The Select Committee and many others have said that the Work programme has been one of the most successful employment programmes that the country has seen. Naturally, we constantly review our work in respect of assessments, but we are focusing on targeted support for individuals, because we all want the right outcomes for them. We all want to help them to return to work, and to give them the tailor-made support that they need. Rather than adopting the hon. Lady’s disparaging approach, we are saying that those people need help, and that we will give them help so that they can get back into work.

Tax Avoidance

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Priti Patel

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Priti Patel)]

Like my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I shall begin by highlighting the fact that tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion has been a key priority for this Government, and we will take no lessons from the Opposition on that issue. At every opportunity, this Government have introduced measures to clamp down on this corrosive practice. It is this Government who, over the course of this Parliament, have secured £85 billion in compliance yield, £31 billion of which came from large businesses. We are the Government who have abolished the shocking loopholes in the tax system that we inherited in 2010—loopholes that the Labour party chose to ignore when in office for 13 years, turning a blind eye when it could have acted. Now, belatedly, Labour Members lecture Government Members on their new-found wisdom in this area.

We have introduced groundbreaking measures to clamp down on tax avoidance schemes. Internationally we have led the world in this very area, as my hon. Friends rightly highlighted during the debate—for example, my hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who spoke so robustly about Britain leading the way internationally and the work we have been undertaking in the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, which are all supportive of transparency and have been signing up as early adopters of common reporting standards. Everyone in the House should welcome that and support those measures, rather than belittling the actions of those territories and Crown dependencies. They have led the way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was clear about the standards we have set, and I deny absolutely the bluster and assertion from Labour Members. To claim, as they have, that Lord Green was at fault with regard to what has happened with the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC when there is no suggestion from anybody, and certainly not from the regulators, that that was the case is quite disgraceful. It is a fact that Ministers and the general public knew about the release of information about individual HSBC account holders, and it is also a fact, as my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary highlighted, that it is a long-standing legal requirement for taxpayer confidentiality that Ministers cannot, under any circumstance, be made aware of individual cases.

[Shabana Mahmood]

We have been calling for Lord Green to make a full and frank statement. No allegations have been made, but he needs to explain what he knew about what was going on at HSBC. The Exchequer Secretary should correct the record on what we have been requesting from the Government and from Lord Green and say whether she agrees that he should make a full and frank statement.

[Priti Patel]

Let us be quite clear on the point regarding Lord Green: that is now a matter for him. He is also not a Minister. We should be very clear about that.

When it comes to tax in particular, let us focus on the facts here. We have specifically taken action to get back money lost in Swiss bank accounts. Our agreement has so far raised more than £1.2 billion that would otherwise have remained beyond our reach, which is almost two thirds of the £1.9 billion that the latest forecasts expect it to raise. That is more than 22,000—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) sits there laughing. It was his Government who did absolutely nothing in this area, despite having the opportunity to close down loopholes. Labour Members do not like hearing it, but these are facts.