John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the HM Treasury
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
After seeing the collapse in motor industry investment, does the Minister now accept that the Government must heed the call of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders to rethink their Brexit negotiating position and to support a customs union with the European Union after Brexit?
Mr Speaker
This is really about agriculture rather than about cars. The concept of an agricultural vehicle might come in handy to the hon. Lady in this context. I am sure that she meant to mention it—[Interruption.] Yes, I keep hearing about tractors from a sedentary position.
Mel Stride
To be fair, Mr Speaker, farmers do own cars, which is an important point to take into account. I assure the hon. Lady that this Government’s overriding objective is of course to negotiate an arrangement with the EU in which borders are as frictionless as possible, trade is kept flowing, supply chains are looked after and the agricultural and motoring sectors are supported.
Mr Speaker
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and Dudley have much to commend them, but they are both a long way away from Oxfordshire, upon which this question is focused. The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) has always erred on the side of optimism in the 30 years that I have known him. He should keep trying, but later on. Resume your seat, man. Jolly well done.
Mr Speaker
I do not know what the hon. Gentleman knows about Oxfordshire, but we will hear from the fella later. We look forward to it. A sense of anticipation is developing in the House.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Mr Hammond
The recent announcement of an additional £20 billion a year by 2023-24 for NHS funding was about core NHS funding. That is a huge commitment: £83 billion over the next five years. However, the hon. Lady is of course right to say that public health spending is also very important and has a direct impact on the way the NHS operates. Local authorities will receive more than £9 billion to spend on public health between now and 2021, but that is not the only stream of funding for public health. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care pay for Public Health England and for immunisation, screening and other preventive programmes. The NHS 10-year plan, which is currently under development, will set out proposals for public health.
Mr Speaker
We thank the Chancellor for his views, which have been set out in considerable detail. The right hon. Gentleman cannot be accused of excluding any consideration that might, at any time, to any degree, be judged material.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Last year, NHS England was given £337 million to prepare for winter pressures, but the Scottish Government received only £8.4 million rather than the expected £32 million. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has claimed that Scotland will get £2 billion from this recent uplift. When we will know the real figure?
Mr Speaker
There is a lot to be said for the London Borough of Harrow—I used to live near it myself—but it is a considerable distance from Cornwall. We will get to the hon. Gentleman in at a later point in our proceedings.
Mr Speaker
The Minister’s initial reply did refer to the Government’s ambitions for every part of the country, so there is no reason why we should not hear about the Dudley situation.
Ian Austin
London, the south-east and the home counties already get the vast majority of public sector investment. Civil service employment actually went up in London and the south-east while public spending was being cut in the rest of the country. Government Members impose austerity on the rest of us, and now they are coming to the Chamber to demand more spending for their own areas. Instead of thinking about London, the south-east and Oxfordshire, why do the Government not start looking at the position of the Black country so that they invest in infrastructure there and bring some new jobs to places such as Dudley?
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is a cheeky chappie in this Chamber. I counted no fewer than four questions, to which I know the Chancellor, with his customary intellectual dexterity, will reply with one answer, embracing the gamut of issues if he wishes.
Mr Hammond
Indeed, Mr Speaker. What I will say is that we have spent the last eight years cleaning up the mess that was left behind for us by the last Labour Government and trying to mitigate its impacts on ordinary families up and down this country. It is the same whenever Labour gets into power: it is always ordinary people and the most vulnerable in society who suffer the most, and it is always the Tory party that has to clean up the mess.
Robert Jenrick
I am not familiar with the project that the hon. Lady mentions, but I will look into it immediately and write to her.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) was inadvertently erased, but I will come to him momentarily—he need not fear.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
There was a recent announcement about extending contracts for rental homes to three years and losing the six-month rental position. May I urge the Treasury to look carefully at that? The last thing we want is fewer rental homes on the market and higher costs, as that would also have an impact on welfare costs.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
British insurers, such as the ones based in Chelmsford, face a dilemma over what will happen to their European clients’ contracts: it would be immoral for them not to pay out on claims, but illegal if they do so. Will you urge the European regulators to come up with the same sensible, pragmatic solutions as the British regulators?
Mr Hammond
Yes, Mr Speaker, I will. I can tell my hon. Friend that we have established a European working group between the Bank of England and the European Central Bank to look at questions of contract continuity and other threats to financial stability over the period when we leave at the end of March. That will be looking at insurance contracts, and it will also be looking at the very large number of outstanding derivative contracts that could also, theoretically, become unenforceable at that point.
Several hon. Members rose—
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
Public services define a decent society, but analysis by the Local Government Association has revealed that councils face a £8 billion black hole by 2025; public services are in meltdown. When will the Chancellor stop behaving like a public services vandal and start resourcing the public services that communities desperately need?
Mr Hammond
That is the answer, Mr Speaker.
There will be a spending review next year, when we will look at the overall spending envelope and the Government’s priorities across the entire range of public spending.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are very short of time. I will take two more: Kevin Hollinrake; and then Helen Goodman.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking is undertaking an important body of work on dispute resolution between banks and business. We will give it a parliamentary launch next week. Once the Minister has had time to digest the contents of that report, will he meet us to see how we can take the recommendations forward?
Mr Philip Hammond
When I have the money in the bank, I will invite them around for a glass of champagne.
Mr Speaker
That is a pretty generous offer from the Treasury—[Interruption.] It will be recorded in Hansard; it will be in the Official Report tomorrow.