Seasonal Work
Debate between Lincoln Jopp and Luke Evans(6 days, 9 hours ago)
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Dr Evans
The hon. Gentleman is right. As an MP, he will be an employer. No doubt, he is a good employer who offers the members of his team good terms and he cares deeply about the staff who he is looking after. However, we have taxpayer-funded jobs, but the private sector has to generate the funding to employ people, so those businesses have to take the risk and work out whether there will be a job in the first place. Worse still, because of the Government’s Budget choices, many cafés and pubs are looking to reduce the hours that they open, to reduce their staffing hours or even to close because they cannot make the numbers add up. We are seeing a cumulative effect, which is having an impact at a micro level on the likes of Twycross and at a macro level on the whole country, with every industry speaking out and saying that it is having problems.
I had hoped that the Government might listen to those ideas. The Government’s mantra has always been that their No.1 mission is growth, but all the measures that they have put in place are anti-growth. We are seeing the results of that, with inflation being higher.
Lincoln Jopp
The Conservatives are often accused by Labour Members of talking down the economy, but from my recollection, over its 14 years the Conservative party set the conditions for the creation of 800 jobs per day, on average. I have just checked the recent statistics and the number is running at about 373 under the current Government. In addition, net inflation has risen every month that the Government have been in power, since July last year. Will my hon. Friend take an intervention from any one of the very few Members present on the Government Benches who is prepared to say when they think that unemployment might start to fall from the record levels of low unemployment that they inherited from the last Government?
Dr Evans
I will take an intervention on that point, if any Labour Member would like to make one. More importantly, my hon. Friend correctly makes the point that it is the Government’s job to set the framework. There is no such thing as Government money: it is taxpayers’ money, earned by those who create the wealth. It is businesses and the associated workforce that provide the public sector with the money it needs to do its job—it is that simple.
In my trade as a doctor, we talk about A-B-C-D-E when it comes to a patient. There is no use dealing with the circulation—the heart—if the person does not have a clear airway. The same applies here: we need to have an economy that is growing and thriving to be able to give the foundation to the funding for the likes of the NHS or education. This is where the Government might be slightly wrong and where they have got the balance wrong, about which we heard from the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger). If the system is tilted too far and made too tight for people ever to take a risk, we are not going to have the tax inflow in the first place. Worse still, we have seen 16,000 millionaires and counting leave the country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lincoln Jopp and Luke Evans(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)
Attainment for boys is, on average, lower than for girls. This Government are determined to understand and address the drivers behind that. We are focused on driving educational excellence everywhere, for every child in every school, and my schools White Paper in the autumn will set out our vision for a system that delivers on excellence for everyone.
New Hospital Programme Review
Debate between Lincoln Jopp and Luke Evans(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lincoln Jopp
I also congratulate the Secretary of State on coming to the Chamber with such a massive capital expenditure announcement and eliciting a saving with his answer to the first question from the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh).
One of the plans that went by the board in May, for reasons I have not quite got to the bottom of, was for the Staines health and wellbeing centre, which is one of only six community diagnostic hubs that NHS England has allocated in England. The funding got pulled in May; will the Secretary of State please have another look at it?