Autumn Statement

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I hope that my right hon. Friend is right on that last point, which will of course be our objective. I am grateful to him for his implicit confidence in my stewardship. I am well aware of his views, which are, as always, long standing and utterly consistent. However, it is not my job to opine on the report that the OBR has made by statute to Parliament; it is my job to respond to it. That is what I have done today. Obviously, economic forecasting is not a precise science, and I absolutely recognise, as would the OBR, that individual Members will have their own views on the likely future trajectory of our economy. It is probably worth mentioning that the OBR specifically says in its report that there is an unusually high degree of uncertainty in its forecasts because of the unusual circumstances.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In a long statement, we had no mention of the national health service. After the first six months of this year, the deficit is £648 million for trusts alone, with a year-end deficit forecast of £669 million. Given the extraordinary measures to which the Department of Health had to go to balance its budget in the last financial year and given those projections, what is the Chancellor doing to ensure that our national health service has a sustainable future?

[Mr Hammond]

I might be a novice at autumn statements, but I am not such a rookie that I did not mention the NHS, so I suggest that the hon. Lady checks Hansard, where she will find that I definitely did. She talks about an aggregate trust deficit of £648 million that was projected at a point that is four months out from the end of the fiscal year. That is in the context of a budget of £110 billion in an NHS that holds a contingency reserve at the centre. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is well aware of such pressures, which are not particularly unusual. They are being managed inside the NHS, and I am of course keeping and will continue to keep a close eye on them with the Health Secretary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), met human rights defenders last week to discuss these specific issues. We raise human rights issues regularly in our meetings with our Chinese counterparts. We also have a formal UK-China human rights dialogue—twice a year, with formal meetings—committed to nothing but the discussion of human rights issues of concern.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Vice is an online news service based in Shoreditch. Recently, three of its journalists were arrested in Turkey. Thanks partly to the intervention of the Foreign Office, the two British citizens were released from jail, but Mohammed Rasool, an Iraqi citizen, is still in jail 50 days later. Will the Foreign Secretary undertake to take this matter up with the Turkish Government, and, generally, the press freedom needed in that country?

Britain in the World

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are two parts to this agenda: reform of the European Union to make it more competitive, more accountable, more effective and more outward looking, which is in the interests of all of us; and Britain’s specific requirements for its relationship with the European Union. We will negotiate a package that embraces both those concepts, and crucially it is in everyone’s interests that we settle the issue of Britain’s relationship with the EU once and for all, and that it is the British people who make that important decision in 2017.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foreign Secretary has spent a great deal of his comments talking about inertia and lack of change under the last Labour Government, and action under the last coalition Government. However, at the end of the last Labour Government there were some moves to discuss and move forward on restricting the freedom of movement of regular petty criminals. How much progress did the coalition Government make on that issue, and is it on his agenda now?

[Mr Hammond]

I am not aware of those discussions at the end of the last Labour Government. However, I can tell the hon. Lady that that the issue she referred to is on our agenda; in our negotiation with Europe, we will ensure that we deal with it.

Promoting prosperity was an important part of our agenda during the last Parliament and it will remain so during this Parliament. We cannot separate our economic success from our diplomatic profile—one supports the other—and so, too, our values. At the heart of our foreign policy is the recognition that protecting our security and promoting our prosperity increasingly rely upon a stable world order, which depends on there being a values-based system in the world. Our own story is one of evolution over revolution, and of perseverance over impatience, and we must never shy from telling it and sharing our experience with others who are making their own journey towards a modern and democratic system.

We will promote stable and prosperous societies as the foundation of the rules-based international system that underpins our own security and prosperity, so projecting our values is at the heart of our strategy to protect our security and promote our prosperity. It is not an afterthought; it is a core part of the agenda.

Ours is a country that is making a decisive contribution to the global agenda. We are leading reform of the European Union; drawing a line with Russia in defence of the international rules-based system and doing our share to reassure NATO’s eastern members; playing a central role in the global coalition against terrorism; tackling Iran on its nuclear programme; and helping to bring stability to Somalia and an end to piracy. We are also working to secure a global climate deal in Paris later this year, and time and time again we play a leading role in bringing the world together, whether it is to overcome Ebola, to end sexual violence in conflict or to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.

To those who say that our ability to tackle the challenges of globalisation has waned, I say, “Look at our record.” Our economy—the foundation of everything we do—is outperforming our peers; our armed forces are taking the fight to ISIL, and they are backed by what is the second largest defence budget in NATO and the largest in the EU; and our overseas aid budget is helping to save millions of lives, literally making the difference between life and death in some of the poorest countries in the world. However, now is most certainly not the time to rest on our laurels. Now is the time to build on the foundations we laid in the last Parliament, using all the many tools at our disposal to shape the world around us, to broaden and deepen the rules-based international system, to meet head-on the challenges to our national security, to promote relentlessly the advancement of our national prosperity and to project confidently our values around the globe. And that is exactly what we intend to do.