The Economy

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Almost everything that we want to achieve in this House depends on having a strong economy, whether it is protecting the NHS, putting police on our streets, giving every child the best education or conserving the natural environment. All those things and so many more depend on economic prosperity, so the question of how we pull ourselves out of this covid economic catastrophe could not be more crucial.

The Government’s intervention package, as many have said, is bigger than anything ever attempted in our nation’s history, and it has protected the livelihoods of millions of people, but it cannot last forever. That was one of the reasons why I was one of the MPs pressing from the earliest point to get the lockdown lifted, to allow shuttered businesses to open up once again. With a global economic recession that is probably going to be the worst on record, many businesses and jobs are in peril. I welcome the Government’s determination to invest in infrastructure, better transport, better broadband, better flood protection and better school buildings. They can all play a part in a plan for recovery, and I appeal for London to get its fair share of that investment.

I welcome the pledge to build back greener. Only a few days ago, constituents logged into a Zoom lobby of Parliament, asking for a concerted push to insulate homes and buildings, and the Chancellor has confirmed that that is going to happen.

We will need to train up thousands of people to do such work, and investment in skills needs to be a second key element of our plan for recovery. That will help improve our poor productivity, but it can also be a powerful driver of social justice. The Conservatives are committed to aspiration and ensuring that everyone has the chance to get on in life and go as far as their talent will take them. Giving people of all ages and backgrounds access to the highest quality training and apprenticeships can help us make good on that vital commitment. In delivering those training opportunities, active efforts must be made to reach out to BAME communities to unleash the potential of people who may have been held back by discrimination and disadvantage.

Lastly, I turn to the public finances. The covid crisis has devastated the nation’s balance sheet. Even the driest of fiscal conservatives recognises that we need to spend big when our economy suffers an external shock. With borrowing costs at a historical low, the steep increase in borrowing seems just about affordable. However, it does leave us vulnerable if interest rates rise in the future or if we are hit by a second shock, whether a renewed outbreak or some other unforeseen disaster.

Thankfully, as many have said, the current situation does not require a rush to austerity, but we will need a clear plan for starting once again the painstaking task of repairing the public finances and getting the deficit down to manageable levels. It will take time, it will take work and it will take some hard choices, but the Conservatives have never shirked this task in previous decades. Now, we must rise again to that challenge and ensure that we put the nation’s finances back on a sound and stable footing for the future.

Future Relationship with the EU

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman raises some important points. We will soon be able to talk in depth about border operations. I am not able to do that today, but he will not have long to wait.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

The nature of the trading relationship that the UK is now seeking with the EU means that, whatever the outcome of the negotiations, the formalities with which exporters will need to comply will change on 1 January. I urge the Government to step up engagement so that businesses large and small throughout the country are ready for the end of the transition period and all the formalities that will bring.

[Penny Mordaunt]

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point that is absolutely accepted. We hope to be able to start to do that very soon indeed. In advance of that we have, as I have alluded to, done a tremendous amount of work, looking at all the stakeholders that Departments are working with and ensuring that we are talking to all the businesses that we need to, not just the obvious ones that are always at the roundtables. We do a good job not only of communicating that but of listening, because many of the solutions that need to be put in place will be derived from the ideas of businesses themselves.

Covid-19

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

When an inquiry takes place into the covid pandemic, I fear that its most painful conclusions will relate to what has happened in care homes. I urge the Government to continue to place the highest priority on stopping the spread of the virus in care homes. That is crucial, both to protect the frail, elderly people who are most at risk and to prevent care homes from acting as infection hotspots, which could revive the virus in the wider population. There is, I am afraid, worrying evidence from Wuhan and Italy that it was in care homes and other healthcare settings that the epidemic was first amplified. It is disturbing to think that, in the early stages of the crisis here, understandable decisions to discharge patients from hospital to make way for the expected surge in covid patients may have had the unintended consequence of sending people in hospital who had asymptomatic covid back to their care home to spread the infection to others.

If we are to get on top of this crisis, we must ensure that no patient is discharged from hospital into a care home unless they have been tested and do not have covid. No one should go into any care home if they are covid-positive. I raised that with Ministers some weeks ago after I was sent a Sky News report in which a care home manager from Devon described admitting covid-positive patients as

“importing death into care homes.”

Yet only a few days ago, I saw a letter from Sutton Council indicating that there are still attempts to place people with covid in care homes. That has to stop.

Every person should be tested before they are admitted to a care home whether they come from the community or from a hospital, and whether they have symptoms or not. Care home staff must also be regularly and routinely tested. If we maintain rigorous control of the virus in hospital and care settings, including through routine, regular testing of staff, patients and residents, day in, day out, that should enable us not only to save lives but to lift lockdown measures more quickly for the rest of us.

It is urgent that we do lift those measures. The Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted a contraction in our economy bigger than anything for 300 years. The Government’s support package for businesses, jobs and livelihoods is a more far-reaching intervention in our economy than anything implemented outside wartime. It has staved off economic catastrophe, and I thank the Government for the support they have given to so many jobs and businesses in Chipping Barnet. We must maintain that support as long as we can, but it is sustainable only for a limited period.

Today’s announcements on the economy take us in the right direction, but we need to move more quickly if we are to wake the economy from the medically induced coma it has been placed in. The only long-term solution is to release the economy from lockdown and to get Britain back to work as soon as it is safe to do so. I urge the Government to do that.

The Economy

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

May I welcome the shadow Chancellor to her place, and thank her for the constructive dialogue that I have had with her over the past two or so weeks? Let me address her questions directly and swiftly. First, I turn to her question about the loan guarantee programme and the banks’ operational capacity. Obviously, this is something that the Economic Secretary and I, working with the banks, have spent a lot of time on over the past few weeks. I am grateful to the banks for re-engineering their entire systems to offer this brand new bounce-back loan. I am assured that it will be available from next Monday morning. There will be a very simple application process, and the banks will not have to conduct more than the customary fraud and anti-money laundering checks, which of course would be reduced for their existing customers. If someone has an existing business account with a bank, the process should prove incredibly rapid, and they should have the cash in their bank account within a day or two. The banks are readying their systems for that launch date as we speak.

I hear a lot from many commentators that we should copy what was done in Switzerland. Now, Switzerland does have 100% guaranteed loans—I absolutely agree that it does—but it is worth bearing in mind that it does not provide very much else in the way of direct fiscal support for their businesses. Indeed, after extensive dialogue with the Swiss Government, it is very clear that, for them, the loan guarantee scheme is the primacy of their direct fiscal support to businesses. In this country, we have provided tens of billions of pounds in direct cash support—in tax cuts through reducing business rates, in cash grants of £10,000 or £25,000, and by paying people’s statutory sick pay bill. These very direct cash impacts, I believe, are more generous than asking companies to take on a loan, which is why I believe that the Switzerland comparison is not analogous. Secondly, the Switzerland furlough scheme requires employers to contribute a fifth of the payment to the scheme, whereas in this country, our furlough scheme removes that very considerable cash burden from businesses.

As I always say when I am at this Dispatch Box or answering questions elsewhere, it is important to look at the totality of all our economic interventions. When measured as a percentage of GDP, it is very clear to me, as has been empirically shown by others, that the sum total of our fiscal intervention to support businesses and people through this crisis is one of the most comprehensive and generous, in terms of scope and scale, anywhere in the world.

Turning to the next question—on universal credit and support for the most vulnerable—I firmly agree that during this crisis, we must of course look after the most vulnerable in our society, and from the Budget onwards, I have strived to do exactly that. We have invested extra funds into tax credits and into universal credit, improved eligibility for statutory sick pay, improved employment support allowance, improved how these schemes work for the self-employed, improved the local housing allowance and, indeed, created a brand new hardship fund for local authorities to help people with their council tax bills. All these investments have a sum total of over £7 billion of investment by this Government to strengthen the safety net to help the most vulnerable in our society through this difficult period.

Lastly, with regard to the future, I wholeheartedly believe that the best way out of this is to ensure that as many people as possible can return to the job that they had. That is the best way to protect people and to protect their livelihoods, their families and their household incomes, which is why all our support has been conducted with that aim in mind—how can we help to support businesses? How can we help them to keep their employees attached to that business? I believe that our furlough scheme stands at the centre of that. All the other interventions will help to support that aim so that as we emerge from this crisis, we can bounce back as quickly as possible to the life that we once knew.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con) [V]]

The Government’s support package for jobs and wages is providing a vital lifeline for millions of families, but every day that the full lockdown continues, further damage is done to the economy, so can I ask the Government to publish a road map to release from the lockdown so that businesses can start to prepare for a phased modification and a safe exit from the current emergency measures?

[Rishi Sunak]

I agree with my right hon. Friend that, of course, the economic damage that is happening at the moment is severe, which is why we have taken the unprecedented measures that we have to try to mitigate as much of that as we can. Of course, I share with her—and indeed, the Prime Minister shares with her, as he said this morning—a sense of urgency to want to restart our economy, not least so that we can get people back into work and start creating the tax revenues that we need to pay for our public services, but we are not there yet. That is why we must remain disciplined and united around our aims and meet the tests that we have set to emerge from this phase of the crisis, but the Prime Minister also said this morning that we are making considerable preparations, and have been for a while, for phase two. In phase two, as he said, we will be able to gradually “refine” our

“economic and social restrictions and one by one…fire up the engines of”

our “vast UK economy”. I can assure my right hon. Friend that that work is ongoing. I remain committed to it and, as the Prime Minister said, the Government will be saying much more about this in the coming days.

DRAFT ZOONOTIC DISEASE ERADICATION AND CONTROL (AMENDMENT) (EU EXIT) REGULATIONS 2019

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 General Committees

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It would be helpful to know whether anything in the regulations will address anti-microbial resistance risks. Although those risks are obviously a significant threat to human health, zoonotic diseases affect the risk of AMR in the animal population having an effect on the human population. If we are to tackle AMR, it is crucial that we have in mind problems relating to zoonotic diseases. I would be very grateful if the Minister commented on that point.

[David Rutley]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I know she has a keen interest in these issues. Overall, British Poultry Council members have reduced antibiotic use by 80 tonnes—by 85%—between 2013 and 2017. That is important. We are keen to reduce AMR across the population, and among farmed animals, over the next few years. In poultry, we already see significant reduction.

These powers also permit the Secretary of State to make changes to the list of third countries from which imports of live poultry and hatching eggs may be accepted. Part 3 makes minor consequential changes to European economic area agreements. Part 4 makes very minor consequential amendments to secondary legislation in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland; the Welsh Government have chosen to make the corresponding changes separately. Part 5 ensures that existing programmes controlling salmonella in poultry through regular testing and control methods, such as culling and restrictions on eggs from infected flocks, will remain in place after exit day, and that the reference laboratories carrying out testing and analysis are able to continue to operate without new designations.

As a result of transferring powers to the devolved Administrations, instead of having UK-wide targets for the reduction of salmonella and UK-wide national control programmes, each Administration will have their own. We will continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations to establish sensible ways of working together to maintain a coherent UK system of controlling zoonotic disease after EU exit while respecting the devolution settlements. The control programmes in the devolved Administrations will continue to function after we leave the EU much as they do now. Targets will be set at the same level, and requirements for testing, culling and other restrictions will remain unchanged.

Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 8th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Just over two weeks ago, Parliament held its annual debate in anticipation of Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. As we so often do in such debates, we saw the House of Commons at its best—recounting what happened, remembering the victims, commending the courage of survivors, and demanding that the lessons learned are never, ever forgotten. From across the House came stories of those who perished and those who survived, of the people who bravely stepped up and saved their Jewish neighbours and of those who stood by and did not. And from across the House came the clear commitment that we must never let antisemitism and racism go unchallenged, because we have horrific proof in our history of where that can lead. I believe that that is an appropriate background against which to consider the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill today.

This two-clause Bill has a simple objective: to retain on the statute book the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009, which would otherwise lapse on 11 November this year. My Bill would remove the sunset clause that is section 4(7) of the Act, with the result that it stays in force.

The case to save the 2009 Act is strong. It empowers a list of our national museums and libraries specified in section 1 to return items lost, stolen, looted or seized during the holocaust to their rightful owners or heirs. Prior to 2009, certain institutions, such as the British Museum and the British Library, were unable to return works of art to the people from whom the Nazis stole them because legal restrictions forbade them from giving away their collections. This was a bar even in cases when the museum was convinced of the merits of the claim and wanted to return the disputed item. Even where the Spoliation Advisory Panel established by the Government to look into these cases concluded that a fair outcome was restoration to the heirs of the original owner, that still could not be done.

The panel was set up following the historic declaration at the Washington conference of 1998, where representatives of 44 Governments from around the world came together to make a commitment to increase their efforts to identify and return Nazi-looted art and objects to the families of the original owners. The declaration recognised that the holocaust was a unique case that required specific measures on restoration of stolen art and property.

As well as the horrors of state-run industrialised mass murder, the Nazi campaign against Europe’s Jewish community involved the widespread and systematic seizure of property. Seizure of material possessions was central to the Nazi project. Throughout the long history of antisemitism in Europe, toxic tropes and lies associated with wealth, property and greed have been used again and again. Sadly, as last year’s debate on antisemitism showed, venomous and hurtful slanders are still deployed against Jewish people by some individuals today.

I never fail to be moved by the commemoration event hosted by Barnet Council to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The theme for commemorations across the country this year was “Torn from home”. An emotional moment during Barnet’s commemoration came when a student from East Barnet School, Chloe Blott, read out a statement about her visit to Auschwitz, where she saw piles of front-door keys taken from new arrivals at the camp—keys that they no doubt hoped they might one day use to return to the homes from which they had been torn.

The Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009 was passed with cross-party support after extensive scrutiny, and a legislative consent motion has been secured for my Bill from the Scottish Parliament. Examples of art returned under the 2009 Act include the Beneventan Missal, which was looted during the bombing of southern Italy in 1943, a John Constable painting stolen when the German army invaded Budapest in 1944, and three Meissen figurines seized in 1937 after the death of Jewish German art collector Emma Budge. This legislation is targeted and limited in scope to a specific period in history, a specific set of circumstances and specific type of object. It therefore has no bearing on wider debates about the potential return of museum objects to their countries of origin. It has worked well in practice, and the museum community has widely welcomed proposals to retain it on the statute book.

The volume of objects looted during world war two sadly means that there is still uncertainty about the full provenance of some of the cultural treasures housed in our national museums. Extensive work has been done by those institutions to check the origins and history of everything in their collections, but the task can probably never be fully and finally completed. I want to highlight the 2016 case in which the British Library returned a book to the family of its owner Karl Mayländer, an Austrian Jewish art collector who was deported to the Łódź ghetto and subsequently murdered. For technical legal reasons, that specific case was not dependent on the operation of the 2009 Act, but it illustrates an important principle. The book was valued at just £20, but Anne Webber of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe said

“every time a family gets a book back it always means a huge amount to them because it is something their relatives held in their hands and read and cared about”.

We all know that objects can provide a strong link to people we have lost. With that in mind, I want to read several comments from people involved in cases establishing the right to restore lost art and objects. Not all these submissions to the Commission for Looted Art in Europe relate specifically to the provisions of the 2009 Act, but they all illustrate the crucial principle that underlies it. The first says:

“Please accept our sincere feelings of gratitude for your attempt to undo some of the enormous evil. These books of our murdered grandmother…have seemingly turned from passive objects to be read into witnesses whose voice will be heard and treasured”.

Another family told the commission:

“I have a need to get this painting back. It was a present from my grandparents to my parents. I remember visiting the artist in his studio with my grandfather. I lost my mother, I lost my father, they were both murdered, it all just gets stronger.”

A third family said:

“Of all the pictures in the collection we are particularly pleased that this one has been rediscovered. It was one of the favourites of our grandparents and our aunt remembers it hanging on the dining room wall of her childhood home. As a young child she always liked it so much and she is so happy that she has had the chance to see it hanging in the family home again.”

Another family said:

“In a real sense, my family has been waiting for this moment for eighty years, when they fled Vienna with their lives and little else, and left their beloved art collection to an uncertain fate. I hope that this will serve as an example to other institutions and individuals, which may have objects that came to their collections through similar circumstances, that it is never too late to grant a measure of justice and compassion.”

The last comment says:

“70 years after the end of the Second World War, there are still many thousands of people looking for their looted property, objects that mean so much. These are not just impersonal items from a lost collection, but objects that carry a huge symbolic and emotional value, to many, part of the landscape of a lost family, of a life destroyed.”

Although, sadly, there is nothing we can do to make up for the pain of losing family members in the holocaust, the return of a book or a cultural object could provide a unique connection to one of those 6 million souls whose lives were cut short by humanity’s greatest crime. Two week ago, we paid many tributes to holocaust survivors in a debate to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The respect we accord to these incredibly brave people should include restoring precious works of art stolen from them and from their families. I commend this Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Theresa Villiers]

I would like to express my gratitude to all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in today’s debate and expressed support for this important Bill, particularly both Front Benchers, and to Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport officials, who provided me with a helpful briefing and support on this important matter. I associate myself with all comments in which Members have, once again, made a commitment that we will not tolerate antisemitism in any form whatsoever. I very much hope that the House will support my Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I think I have already explained that the facts speak for themselves. Receipts from the reduction in corporation tax have increased by over 50%. That measure was opposed by the SNP and the Labour party.

My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) represents many people who work in the automotive sector, which we want to support. He asked about vehicle excise duty. In this Bill, as he knows, we are legislating to increase support for low-emission taxis and have brought that measure forward by a year. We have also increased support for electric charge points, to help the further roll-out of electric vehicles, as other hon. Members across the House have suggested. As I discussed last week with the chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, who supported this strongly, we intend to review the consequences of the new worldwide harmonised light vehicle test procedure on vehicle excise duty and report back in the spring.

The right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) spoke of the need to incentivise further business investment, particularly at this important moment in the Brexit negotiations. I am sure he will welcome the increase in the annual investment allowance from £200,000 to £1 million, which will encourage businesses across the country, including manufacturers, to invest in new plant, new machinery and digital technology and raise their productivity, as well as the new structures and buildings allowance, which started on Budget day.

The Budget laid out a whole range of measures—exactly the ways forward that the right hon. Gentleman suggested—to increase productivity, which is the only sustainable way to improve living standards in this country, including the largest ever investment in our strategic road network and investment in our skills base, including the introduction of T-levels, encouraging apprenticeships and the national retraining partnership.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I very much welcome the money in the Budget for repairing potholes. Does the Minister agree that it is vital that our great capital city gets its fair share of that funding?

[Robert Jenrick]

I certainly do. Some Opposition Members were snobby about potholes, but those of us in the real world know that potholes matter. They affect people’s working lives, and we want to fix that problem. In answer to my right hon. Friend, Barnet will shortly be receiving £690,0000 for potholes.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and many others welcomed the transferable tax history, which we announced in the Budget and which she advocated. She was strongly supported by our Scottish Conservative colleagues. The oil and gas industry is a national economic asset and one that we want to support. It supports 280,000 jobs across the Union, but particularly in north-east Scotland. In the Budget, the Chancellor reaffirmed our commitment to strong, competitive and predictable taxation, so that the industry—which is, as the hon. Lady said, still fragile—can continue to strengthen in the years ahead.

Many of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), welcomed the introduction of the increase in the personal allowance and the increase in the higher-rate threshold—a tax cut for 32 million people, more than 1.5 million more working people taken out of tax altogether and achieving an increase in the personal allowance by more than 90% since 2010, which is a promise made in our manifesto and a promise delivered in the Budget.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), as well as quoting Tiberius—I am yet to know whether Tiberius is quoted in No. 11; perhaps the Chancellor will invite my hon. Friend round for a cup of tea—was absolutely right to say that the Bill takes forward the measures in the last Budget to create a stamp duty relief for first-time buyers in other properties and extend it to those in shared ownership. That encourages and increases the dream of home ownership to a new generation.

As the Financial Secretary said at the beginning of the debate, the Bill also makes a number of changes to make our tax system fairer, and many Members across the House welcomed the new digital services tax. Some asked why we do not go further and faster, but let us remember that we will be the first major economy to create a tax of this nature. We are genuinely leading the international community and we hope to lead a multinational agreement, but the UK, under the leadership of the Chancellor, will lead the way. With those measures and others in the Bill, we will continue to close the tax gap, which is at its lowest ever and lower than in any year of the last Labour Government.

The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), at the beginning of the debate, and other hon. Members later, asked what action we are taking to support the environment and on climate change. One such measure, of course, is our proposed plastics packaging tax—again, leading the world by creating an innovative tax that encourages the producers of plastic packaging to take responsibility and change their packaging, and building on great Conservative environmental taxes of the past, such as the landfill tax created by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke).

My hon. Friends the Members for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) and for Moray (Douglas Ross), among others, said very clearly—this is an important dividing line in British politics—that we are excited about the future of this country, and want to support and invest in science and technology and in research and development to drive the economy forward. From the Labour party, we heard no ideas as to how to grow the economy. We heard about more spending and higher taxes, but nothing about how to create wealth and make our country more prosperous. We heard only ideas that we know have failed in the past.

Let us be clear: a vote against the Bill tonight would be a vote against enabling investment and new jobs in the north-east of Scotland and a vote against the transferable tax history, which the hon. Member for Aberdeen North says she has campaigned for and advocated over many years. It would be a vote against further investment in manufacturing to raise productivity, which Opposition Members have said should be a national priority, and a vote against the increase in the annual investment allowance. It would be a vote against extending the stamp duty land tax relief for first-time buyers to those who want to live in shared-ownership properties, something advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North. A year ago, the Opposition voted against our first policy in this area. Today, we know that more than 120,000 people across the country have benefited from that stamp duty relief. Surely the Labour party will not make the same mistake again.

Anyone who votes against the Finance Bill tonight will be voting against further actions to close the tax gap and to make it harder to evade and avoid taxation, and against making our tax system fairer. It would be a vote against a tax cut for 32 million people, and a vote against taking more than 1.5 million of our fellow citizens out of income tax altogether.

The Bill will make the UK more competitive, more innovative and more entrepreneurial. It will deliver lower taxes and put more money into the pockets of our British working public. It will make our economy and our country stronger, and I commend it to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we want to encourage more small and medium-sized enterprises to take on apprenticeships. That is why we have reduced the level from 10% to 5% for co-investment, which will encourage more small firms to get involved, as well as extending the amount that can be used down the supply chain.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to reduce the deficit and improve the public finances.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

The 9.9% of GDP post-war record deficit that we inherited in 2010 is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility to fall to 1.2% this year and to 0.8% of GDP in 2023-24, the lowest level since the start of the century. The OBR’s Budget forecast shows that borrowing will be lower in every year than was the case at the spring statement, and that we are now meeting our two fiscal rules three years early. We continue to be committed to our balanced approach—getting debt down, keeping taxes low, investing in Britain’s future and funding our public services, with the spending review to take place next year.

[Theresa Villiers]

The nature of the economic cycle means that, inevitably, over the next few years there will be a global economic downturn. Can the Chancellor reassure the House that he will always retain sufficient headroom and resilience in the public finances to enable us to respond strongly to such a shock?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, and I remind my right hon. Friend that the fiscal targets are set in cyclically adjusted terms, so that in the event of an economic downturn, fiscal space is automatically created. In addition, I have kept a buffer, over and above any cyclical dividend, of £15.4 billion in 2020-21 to allow us firepower should any unexpected events cause headwinds for the economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

It was of course this Government who one year ago created the Mayors across the UK, including in Greater Manchester, and several of them, including Andy Street, have had a great impact on their local economies. I have had conversations with the leader of the Cheshire and Warrington local enterprise partnership and the Minister responsible at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to take such matters forward.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

23. May I challenge the Government to maintain a strong emphasis on sound management of the public finances so we can invest in skills and apprenticeships to boost productivity and living standards?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is only with sound management of the public finances that we can continue to invest in the skills required to grow productivity, and that is exactly what we are doing with increasing investment in apprenticeships, through the apprenticeship levy, and with the T-levels, which will be largest change to our secondary education system since the introduction of A-levels and which we will be seeing in the coming years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We are preparing for all outcomes in our negotiations with the European Union, but the Government’s objective is to reach a deal. As the Prime Minister made clear in her Florence speech, as part of that deal we want to agree an implementation period, during which businesses and Governments can prepare for the new relationship, and we want to agree the principles of that period as soon as possible. Last week, at the European Council, the 27 agreed to start internal preparatory discussions on guidelines in relation to an implementation period. Together with the broad support for the idea in Parliament, this should give British businesses confidence that we are going to provide them with the certainty they require.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Will the Chancellor welcome the fact that there are more women in work than ever before and set out what steps we can take to ensure that this is one of the best countries in the world for women to set up and run their own businesses?

[Mr Hammond]

One of the remarkable achievements of the past seven years has been the increase in participation in the workforce, particularly in the number of women participating in the workforce. That is in large part due to the family-friendly policies this Government have pursued, with huge increases in the availability of childcare—free childcare—and in the tax deductability of childcare. We will continue to drive a set of policies that encourages women into the workforce, both because it is economically sensible and because it is socially inclusive.