Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Gauke and Chris Ruane

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who is responsible for coroners, will be happy to meet him.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

The number and percentage of women given custodial sentences has dropped in many areas of the country. In north Wales, the figure has increased by 57%. Will the Minister look into the reasons for this huge increase?

Universal Credit

Debate between David Gauke and Chris Ruane

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we will have that 100% advances system available in the new year. Let me come back to a point I made. The Leader of the Opposition said that one in eight people in Gloucester City Council had been evicted because of UC—that would be 650 people. It turned out that it was not one in eight—it was eight. And it turned out that it was not because of UC; it was because of other problems that had arisen, including in one case someone who had not lived in the property for 18 months.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Until recently, my local authority, Denbighshire, had the highest levels of household debt in the whole country. People were forced into the arms of loan sharks, pawn shops and payday-loan usury. Will the Government’s decision to encourage universal credit recipients to apply for and accept Government loans increase or decrease household debt in Denbighshire?

[Mr Gauke]

If we want to stop people falling prey to loan sharks, the flexibility of advances in the system, with the addition of budgeting loans to help people with white goods, is exactly the right way to go about it. If we do not offer that, the risks that the hon. Gentleman set out would be real.

Finance Bill

Debate between David Gauke and Chris Ruane

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

If it is such a sensible, logical and scientifically researched conclusion that reducing the tax rate from 50% to 45% is such a good thing, why do the great British public not believe it?

[Mr Gauke]

I do not know whether the great British public have reached that conclusion. Perhaps some of them believe some of the arguments put by the Labour party, but if they do I have to point out some of the weaknesses. In the Committee of the whole House, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), who previously spoke for the Opposition on this issue, said that he considered the taxable income elasticity calculations in the report to be “smoke and mirrors”. We would call them analysis and economics.