Torsten Bell
Main Page: Torsten Bell (Labour - Swansea West)Department Debates - View all Torsten Bell's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 days, 4 hours ago)
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Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)
This is an important question when, shockingly, household incomes in the north-east hardly grew over the long 14 years of the previous Conservative Government. We need to raise public and private investment, which is why we are working with the north-east combined authority on its local growth plan. The Office for Investment is working particularly closely with the north-east, alongside Liverpool, on developing local growth opportunities.
Mary Glindon
With the town’s access to the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, a cluster of advanced manufacturing firms and an expanding energy skills academy, more of Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend’s potential is yet to be tapped. What discussions is the Minister having with the Energy Secretary to ensure that the investment is there and that green supply chains are anchored in places such as Tyneside?
Torsten Bell
I have spent far too much of my life talking to the now Energy Secretary, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight the potential of green energy supply chains in her constituency and across the north-east. This is a Government committed to securing economic gains alongside energy security from the energy transition —in stark contrast to the previous Government, who thought the net zero transition was something on which to create dividing lines, not jobs.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Next month will see a rise and an extension to the minimum wage. In Portsmouth North, there are 9,600 minimum wage workers—higher than the national average—leaving many in in-work poverty and in desperate need of a boost to living standards. What steps are the Government taking to help improve living standards for those low-paid workers?
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that a higher minimum wage is an important way that we make low-earning workers’ lives better—as is the extension that we announced to sick pay yesterday, which I hope will be welcomed on all sides of this House.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
The art of taxation is extracting the largest amount of money with the lowest amount of squeaking from the goose. Yet the Chancellor will have heard the honking of the tractors on Whitehall today in response to her raising an amount of money that will pay for less than one day of NHS spending. Will she commit to reversing the family farm tax?