Autumn Statement Resolutions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

Securing good jobs for more people is the best way out of poverty, and the best route to raising living standards. That is why, in his autumn statement, the Chancellor announced a cut in the main rate of employee national insurance from 12% to 10%. That is why we have raised the national living wage, representing a boost of more than £1,800 to the annual earnings of a full-time worker. That is why we are delivering the next generation of welfare reforms to help thousands more people into work. That is why, Madam Deputy Speaker, we on the Conservative Benches will never tire of reminding Opposition Members of our record since 2010: nearly 4 million more people in work; numbers on company payrolls at a near-record high; the unemployment rate around halved; more than a million fewer people in poverty; and UK economic inactivity lower than the G7, the EU and the OECD average, and down nearly 300,000 from its pandemic peak.

As Conservatives, we believe in making sure that those who can work have every opportunity to do so. Indeed, that is precisely how we can afford a strong welfare safety net for those who are unable to work and support for the most vulnerable in our society.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If we were to insist on work visas being given only to people who are on average UK earnings, would that not create a virtuous circle by which only skilled people came here, and care homes would be forced to pay proper wages, ensuring that more people came off my right hon. Friend’s books and got into productive work?

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is attempting to tempt me into matters that I know are under discussion at the highest levels of Government at the moment around the policy that we should adopt on immigration, but I will not be drawn immediately in that direction.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

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

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

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

When our party first came to office after the great crash, after the years of borrow and spend, our country was close to the abyss. We inherited then the greatest deficit in our peacetime history, a deficit of a magnitude that posed a real and present danger to every one of us, to every man, woman and child in our country and, indeed, to generations yet to come.

This was a deficit greater even than that created by another profligate Labour Government decades before that party reduced our country to scampering cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund for a bail-out, because they had brought us to the point of bankruptcy. It is the Conservative party that has once again—just as we did then—brought our country back from the brink and into better times.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mel Stride]

I will make a little progress.

What does this history teach us? Is it that that Marxism provides the answers, as the Labour leadership would have us believe; that fomenting the overthrow of capitalism, as the shadow Chancellor put it, can lead to prosperity; or that high taxation, nationalisation, the blatant sequestration of private capital and borrowing on a scale hitherto unimagined might provide us with the answers or some easy way out? No, the lesson is rather more prosaic but, none the less, noble: that living within our means matters; that those who work hard for their money should get to keep more of it; that the taxman should be held back from the pay packets of those who create and strive; that those parts of our country that have, for too long, felt neglected and left behind should once again be included and heard; and that economies, our communities and our very liberty thrive if we are freed from the burdens of the excessive state interference advocated by the Labour party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right; there is no doubt that if you keep on putting up taxes, as Labour says it will do and would be forced to do if, heaven forbid, it was ever to form a future Government, because its numbers do not add up, you end up killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My right hon. Friend is an excellent Minister, knocking on the door of the Cabinet, so I am sure he will agree with everything—[Interruption.] I know he is one of us, too. Is he slightly concerned that we are increasing spending by £30 billion a year up to 2023 and that we are taking out of the state the same proportion as Gordon Brown took out? As a fellow traveller in the Conservative cause, can he convince me that he is committed, as I am and those on our Benches are, to reducing government debt?

[Mel Stride]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are indeed reducing government debt. The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that in each year of the coming period we will be reducing debt as a percentage of GDP. We have of course met our two intermediate targets a full three years early. We are fiscally responsible, which is why we are in a position to be able to support our public services in the very significant way that we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

19. What recent steps he has taken to reduce the amount of tax payable by small and medium-sized enterprises.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

My hon. and gallant Friend always gets there in the end and in my experience he is very good when he does. I can tell him that we do a great deal to support small businesses. We announced our one third reduction in the small business rate. Our tax rate for small business is declining. It is now 19% and it will fall to 17% in the next couple of years.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Can the Minister assure me that by the end of this Parliament small businesses in Gainsborough will be paying less tax than they are now?

[Mel Stride]

I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the smaller retailers in his constituency will be paying about a third less in rates. He will see a further diminution of the general corporation tax rate. It was 28% in 2010 and it is now coming down to 17%. Of course, they will also benefit from other measures, such as the freezing of fuel duty, which will help many small businesses.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Leaving the EU: UK Ports (Customs)

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

You are indeed a generous fellow, Mr Speaker. The nub of this issue is the misconception that having customs control at the border is the same thing as stopping every vehicle or jamming up Dover. There are approaches available—we set out them out at length in our White Paper last year, and we have been negotiating on them and will continue to put them forward to the EU—that use technology and the pre-lodging of customs declarations, and that may use inventory systems at ports or number plate recognition technology. All these approaches are perfectly capable of allowing traffic to move briskly through the ports, as indeed is the case today.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Surely the implication of this question is that after we leave the customs union, it would somehow—bizarrely—be in the interest of those on either side of this equation to want to impose friction on trade. Surely the EU would not want to do this, given its massive trade surplus. So are we not tilting at windmills here—or is this not, as the French would say, a mere canard?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. As we know, there is a trade deficit in goods between ourselves and the EU, so it is clearly in the EU’s interests—and, particularly in the case of Dover and Calais, in France’s interests—to make sure that trade continues to flow smoothly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to reduce tax-related bureaucracy for small and medium-sized enterprises in the east midlands.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

The Government are committed to reducing the administrative burdens for small and medium-sized enterprises, including in the east midlands. That is why we delivered £272 million of net reductions in administrative burdens between 2011 and 2015, and why we continue to reduce unnecessary interaction with the tax system.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We still have one of the longest tax codes in the world. I know that the Treasury is under constant pressure to bung extra pieces of money to particular interest groups, but may I suggest to the Minister that he sticks to his last on the Treasury Bench and argues the case for less taxation, simpler taxation and less debt? That is the best service we can give to the young and to businesses.

Finance Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is right, which reminds us of the overall purpose of raising tax and ensuring that we bring it in, namely to live within our means, pay down our deficit and, critically, have the fine public services that are a hallmark of a civilised society. All of us can unite in wanting that.

The Bill legislates for new rules to prevent large multinational businesses playing the system by claiming tax deductions for excessive interest expenses and ensures that companies cannot use losses to pay no tax even in years when substantial profits are made. In last week’s debate, I was somewhat surprised by the concerns raised by some Opposition Members about the provisions relating to the taxation of businesses trading in Northern Ireland. They are nothing new. They were announced in the 2016 autumn statement and do not create a tax loophole. The legislation simply ensures that all small and medium-sized enterprises with trading activity in Northern Ireland will be able to benefit from the Northern Ireland corporation tax regime in the same way as larger companies already can, and it also introduces additional anti-avoidance rules to ensure that the regime operates as intended. The Bill’s provisions do not weaken that at all; they simply mean that more businesses will be able to apply the regime to the taxation of profits genuinely arising, and only arising, from activities carried out in Northern Ireland once the regime is put into effect.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend refers to the taxation and regulation of business, but once we are in the hard, bracing winds of international free trade after Brexit, does he agree that it is essential that our Government ensure that we have a low-tax, deregulated, pro-business environment so that our businesses can compete on the world market?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is why the Government have been clear through our tax planning and the information that we have been signalling to the marketplace. Certainty for business is extremely important, which is why we have lowered corporation tax and have stuck to that position. We are making considerable progress, and I will take my hon. Friend’s point on board.

In short, the Bill continues our hard work to drive down the tax gap and ensures that we will provide a fair and competitive tax system. The other part of the deal is that those taxes must be paid.

Citizenship (Armed Forces) Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

Friday 13th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to speak on this calm Friday morning, and what a pleasurable experience it is to see law being made and properly scrutinised? May I also say to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord)—I know that this is his first Parliament—that I thought his speech was outstanding. He took many interventions, and batted them all away very deftly. He has clearly done a huge amount of research. I commend him for what he has done, and also for his choice of Bill.

It is very difficult to get a private Member’s Bill through, and I see nothing wrong with trying to persuade everyone to agree to it before it arrives on the Floor of the House. There is nothing wrong with co-operating with the Government in that sense, or indeed with the Opposition. My hon. Friend’s Bill is a very delicate creature, and it would take very few Members of Parliament to kill it. However, I have no doubt that it will become law, so I say well done to him.

The Bill is important because it is entirely in tune with the armed forces covenant. Although when I was studying it in the Library my first impression was that it was very narrow, I see nothing wrong with that. Private Members' Bills have to be narrow. In fact, this Bill goes to the heart of current public debate: the armed forces are centre stage at present, and the Government have rightly made a great virtue of the armed forces covenant. Any ludicrous bureaucratic mechanism that disadvantages the forces is rightly resented by the Veterans Association. This is a good Bill, and I am sure that it will be an excellent Act.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is a learned and long-established Member of Parliament. I wonder whether he will attempt to answer a question that has been niggling away at the back of my mind. It seems to me that the anomaly in the 1981 Act is an absolute absurdity. Why does my hon. Friend think that it occurred in the first place? Was it an unintended consequence of some part of the legislation? Was the aim to achieve something that we have missed here? Or was it simply an oversight that should never have occurred?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The short answer is that I do not know, but the Minister is sitting here, and no doubt he does know. What I will say is that although the private Member’s Bill procedure is often criticised, private Members' Bills are in fact scrutinised much more closely than Government Bills. The British Nationality Act was a large and important measure, but I am not a great believer in the conspiracy theory of history. I do not think that anyone in the Home Office wanted to disadvantage the armed forces. I am a believer in the cock-up theory of history, and if my hon. Friend wants my honest opinion, I think that that anomaly was simply a cock-up. Now it is being righted. That is what this procedure is all about.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Woking said, it is not right that the applications of people who put their lives on the line should be refused when the very reason for their absence is that we, the British Government—we, the British people—sent them overseas to protect our country. Why the anomaly arose I do not know, but it seems absurd to me, and that is why I think that the Bill, although narrow, is important.

The Minister has said:

“Making this change was a priority commitment under the Armed Forces Covenant. I am delighted to support this Bill which will ensure service men and women are not disadvantaged.”

So the Minister is on side. As has been mentioned, Veterans Aid is also on side, and put it very well when it said:

“Veterans Aid, more than any other military charity, has championed the cause of Foreign and Commonwealth servicemen and women, disadvantaged, through no fault of their own, by bureaucracy that is demonstrably at odds with the Military Covenant.”

The Army Families Federation has said:

“This legislation will make a big difference to the many soldiers and their spouses who are currently prohibited from applying for Citizenship because they were serving overseas or were on operations at the start the 5-year residential period.”

So this is clearly an important Bill, and it is clearly widely supported.

This Second Reading debate offers us an opportunity to try to tease out more information from the Minister about exactly how many people will be affected, how much further we can go in terms of the military covenant, and how we can improve morale and recruitment. A considerable number of people will potentially be involved. As of 1 April last year, 8,510 of the 166,110 members of the trained UK regular forces were non-British, constituting approximately 5.1% of our nation’s armed forces. That is quite a lot. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether he thinks that it is the right number, and what is the Government’s policy on recruitment.

I am not sure that I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who intimated earlier that perhaps there were too many foreign nationals serving in our forces. The Minister, who is far more knowledgeable than me, will be able to confirm or correct that, but I suspect that the 5.1% figure is fairly constant. It seems a reasonably healthy percentage, but one would not want it to rise too far. It is important, particularly in times of economic difficulty and high unemployment, for our armed forces to consist overwhelmingly of British citizens.

Of those 8,510 forces, about 520 were Nepalese, and nearly 8,000 were citizens of the Republic of Ireland or Commonwealth countries. About 4.5% of the armed forces intake at the end of 2011 consisted of black and ethnic minority personnel. I may be wrong about this, but according to my research, there are currently no statistics stating how many non-British members of the UK regular forces currently desire to gain British citizenship. I suspect that the number is relatively low. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking mentioned a figure, but I do not know where he found it. Even if the number who will be affected is only in the low hundreds, I do not think that that necessarily means that the Bill is unimportant. It is the principle, rather than the number involved, that is important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who is an expert.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for his very gracious and, if I may say so, rather perceptive remark. Does not the fact that the anomaly that we are addressing today has now come to the Floor of the House, raised in a private Member’s Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord), mean that it has ceased to be a small matter? Instead it has become rather totemic, which is all the more reason why we should make sure the Bill has a safe passage through this House.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

On Friday mornings, Members of Parliament naturally have many other things to do in their constituencies and we therefore all accept that the Chamber is not swarming with Members, but there are many people outside watching this debate on television, including many in the armed forces, and they will see this as totemic and they will be looking at Members of Parliament doing their best to try to get rid of the little irritants of service life one by one. I therefore think what we are doing today is important and should not be underestimated.

I was in the House during the passage of the 1981 Act, but I do not have any close recollection of its passage; after all, there have been so many Acts of Parliament over the years. Clearly, however, something went wrong with it in respect of the issue we are addressing. It specifies certain residence requirements for naturalisation for British citizenship. It states that one requirement is that the applicant

“was in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the period of five years ending with the date of the application”.

That would seem to be entirely sensible.

Can the Minister also explain the thinking behind other requirements? My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) mentioned one of his constituents who was married to an English person and has been disadvantaged by this Act. It is not only service personnel who are disadvantaged. Will the Minister take this opportunity to explain the thinking behind this provision and others?

The Act also specifies the number of days the applicant is allowed to be absent during the five-year qualifying period. The Act gives the Secretary of State the power to waive some of the residence requirements if there are “special circumstances”, however. This discretion is applied in applications involving non-British members of the armed forces. Time spent serving in the UK or overseas can count towards the qualifying residence period. However, it does not permit the Secretary of State to waive the requirement to be physically present in the UK on the first day of the qualifying period ending with the date of the application. One must assume that, contrary to what my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon said, there was some rationale behind that. Given that the Secretary of State appears to have quite wide discretion, I am interested to know why no discretion was given in this particular case.

HEALTH

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mel Stride

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)

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I want to thank and salute many hundreds—possibly even thousands—of people in my constituency who make a huge contribution every year to the communities in which they live, often on a voluntary basis. I know that it is very fashionable nowadays to suggest that communities are constantly under pressure, disintegrating, transitory or being disaggregated in one form or another, but I am here to reassure the House that in Central Devon community is alive and whole.

It is invidious to single out individual organisations and individuals, of course, because for every one I mention there are many I will not have time to mention. None the less, some have been particularly special to me as a Member of Parliament over the past couple of years. I want to start with a gentleman called Brian Warren, who has run an organisation called Farm Crisis Network for the past decade or so. It provides pastoral support to our farming community, which, as you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, has been under considerable pressure over many years. The foot and mouth outbreak in 2001 had its epicentre in Hatherleigh in my constituency, and many of us still remember to this day the pyres burning, the burning cattle and the pall of black smoke that filled the skies above Devon. It was a very difficult time. We are also aware of the difficulties associated with bovine TB and the challenges of milk prices, which are under pressure from supermarkets. Brian has done an extraordinary job with his colleagues on an entirely voluntary basis, providing compassion to many farmers in my constituency who have much needed it.

I want also to thank all those who are involved in the 125 town and parish councils that I have scattered across my 550 square miles of Devon. I can assure hon. Members that I do not manage to get round all of them on a regular basis—there are too many—but many people give up a great deal of their time, and that is much appreciated. I particularly thank the town clerks of my larger towns—Judith Hart in Buckfastleigh, John Germon in Ashburton, Terry Westwood in Bovey Tracey, John Carlton in Chudleigh, Martin Maggs in Crediton, and Don Bent in Okehampton. For all the people they serve, a big thank you.

I have had quite a lot of involvement with the Royal British Legion this year. It does an extraordinary job for many well deserving men and women and the families of those who fight on our behalf. We have heard much about Afghanistan this afternoon. The Royal British Legion is not just the custodian of remembrance. It also provides practical help to individuals and families, and I am particularly grateful to the Royal British Legion in Ashburton. I should like to thank Maurice Mann, David Lewis, Kath Pugh and Bob Shemeld for the support they have given to the legion locally.

I thank Sandra Coleman, who has looked after the museum, the Valiant Soldier, which was a pub that was closed in Buckfastleigh in 1965 and has been preserved exactly as it was the day that it closed, including the coins and the change in the till. In addition to looking after the museum, Sandra has started a project to preserve and archive the history of the town. I was privileged to have been present when she was awarded the freedom of the town of Buckfastleigh in July this year.

I salute Sue Eales, a lady who has fostered many children in and around Ashburton. She provides them with the love, happiness, respect and security that we would all like to see our children receive. She is a very special lady, one of those great unsung heroes, and I am very proud to be able to mention her in this debate. I mention also Deborah Sterling, who has fought hard for youth services in Ashburton, especially a new skateboard park, and her son, for his imagination in designing the park.

Peter Mallaband, who lives in New Park near Bovey Tracey, has assisted me a great deal in the work that I and many others in the House have done in respect of park home legislation and in trying to improve the rights of park home owners. Peter has always been immensely generous with his time, not just to me, but to other local residents in other local parks in my constituency, including those who live in Buckingham Orchard in Chudleigh Knighton, who have had a particularly difficult period over the past few years.

I thank Wendy Brown and Sue Goode, who run the Crediton food bank and whose services will be much appreciated and in many cases much needed this Christmas. I thank Chris Gibbs, who has done a huge amount to support his community of Tedburn St Mary, so much so that he was in the vanguard of that village being voted the best village in England and Wales some years ago on the strength of its community cohesion and the vibrancy of the community there. I was privileged to work with him in fending off a proposed permanent road closure that would have much inconvenienced the local villagers.

I would like to mention Sally Hordern, who lives in the village of Exbourne and has fought very hard to get a new community store there ever since the village store closed just over a decade ago. She fought through all the obstacles. I had the privilege earlier this year of opening that extraordinary store, which is partly underground. It has a beautiful design and is a great monument and tribute to her and all those who worked on the project.

I would like to pay tribute to the people of Kennford and Buckfastleigh, who endured some of the worst flooding the country has seen recently, and I was grateful that the Prime Minister was able to come down to Buckfastleigh to meet some of the residents. One of the things that struck me was that, although it was an absolute tragedy, particularly for those affected, it was also an opportunity for the community to come together, and they did so magnificently.

I would like to salute Mary Stephenson, a constituent who has done a great deal regarding prisoner rehabilitation and looking after families whose loved ones have gone to prison. I spent some time with her at Channings Wood prison earlier this year and was much moved and impressed by her project and by her work and dedication and that of her colleagues.

I would like to thank Paul Dobbie, who runs the Room 13 youth facility in Okehampton, a vibrant and positive place, and Chris Marson, who lives in the small village of Northlew in the west of my constituency. He has managed to improve the broadband connection significantly by employing ingenious new technologies, which has helped the village a great deal, and he has also furthered the new community store there.

It remains for me finally to thank the staff in my office, Chris Yeo and, in particular, Dominic King and Mike Knuckey, for supporting me and all my demanding ways. I also wish to thank my family—

Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)

- Hansard -

And me? Will my hon. Friend thank me?

Mel Stride

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I will thank my hon. Friend in due course.

I thank my wife Michelle and my three daughters. I also wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, your family and, indeed, your millions of admirers up and down the country a very happy Christmas and hope that I have many more speaking opportunities at your behest in 2013.