Finance (No. 3) Bill
Debate between Rebecca Pow and Peter DowdMonday 12th November 2018
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Finance Act 2019 View all Finance Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend, who is a great advocate for his constituency, is spot on. Some 4.5 million children—7,000 per constituency—are living in poverty in the UK. Conservative Members should concentrate on sorting out that kind of problem. That is what the Government should be focusing on.
Rebecca Pow
The hon. Gentleman just talked about spurious rhetoric, but I want to take him back to what he said about climate change, because he completely misses the point. The Government are doing more on climate change than any before them. A great deal of it is being done by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—it is about joined-up thinking. We have the 25-year plan, the Agriculture Bill, the green growth strategy and the electric car strategy, and measures in the Budget draw this together. The plastics tax is one very good example of how seriously we take the issue.
Peter Dowd
Investment in renewables is down. The idea that the Government are green is itself green—it is a pathetic claim.
The Government promised us a public register of beneficial ownership. I have asked before: where is it? It is another broken promise. I call on the House to support the amendment to give the people of the United Kingdom action on the great challenges facing our nation, which the Government appear incapable of addressing and which have been ignored for too long.
I end on the note I started on: the abuse of power. It was once said that:
“Worse than a corrupt government is an incompetent one, not least because having the second characteristic does not exclude the first”.
Given the way the Government have behaved over the ability of Parliament to do its job, that notion is becoming closer and closer as the days progress. It should be deeply worrying to any democrat.