"May I draw the attention of the Chancellor to the recent research published by the International Monetary Fund, which shows that the choice we made in 2010 to deal with the deficit primarily by controlling spending rather than raising taxes, as the Opposition would have done, was the right choice? …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"Will the Chief Secretary urge her Cabinet colleagues, when they are making these decisions, to bear in mind that public sector pay rises must be fair not only to public sector workers, but to the five sixths of workers in the private sector who face the same pressures and challenges?..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the concerns that those workers will be facing, but he knows perfectly well that the Government’s proposals in this Bill are designed to deal with abuse. He knows that there are no plans to change the rules in a way that would affect …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I will deal with the amendments and some of the issues introduced by the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd).
Let me cover first the jobs position. The only criticism I have of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), who raised this matter, …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I completely agree, but the hon. Gentleman misquotes me. I did not say that Government have no role. I said that Government do not create the jobs, but I explicitly said that Government create the conditions within which businesses operate and can create jobs. He is absolutely right about that, …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I have not got any idea. I was not Chief Whip between 2010 and 2014. Individual taxpayer matters are for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and Ministers do not get involved in individual taxpayer decisions. As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and several other hon. Members have pointed out, …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"My hon. Friend is right. We hear a lot from the Opposition about clamping down on evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, and I give them credit for talking about it a lot. Unfortunately, they did not do anything about it when they were in government. The Minister and this Government …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"There are a couple of things in what the hon. Lady says. She is absolutely right that we need to do more to ensure that multinational companies pay tax in the appropriate jurisdiction, but we cannot do that unilaterally. We have to work with other countries, because we need international …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"No. First, it cannot just be done at European Union level—[Interruption.] No, we have to do it globally, because many of the companies involved are US companies. The base erosion—[Interruption.] I do not know why the Opposition Front-Bench team are laughing. The base …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I cannot take an intervention when I am still dealing with the first one. The base erosion and profit sharing programme is a global initiative, and we are leading on that work.
As for the point of the hon. Member for Oxford East about the EU, if I remember rightly, …..." Lord Harper - View Speech