Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Tonia Antoniazzi

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Let me take the second of my hon. Friend’s points first. As I have outlined, there is always human intervention when it is appropriate. None the less, he is quite right to raise the issue of fraud and error. We have seen a reduction in the Department over the past year of some 10% across the benefit system, and much of that has been driven by machine learning and data analytics.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of children experiencing destitution.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

Child poverty and its reduction is absolutely core to the mission of my Department, which is why we have focused on cost of living payments, why we have put up benefits across the board by 10.1% and why the Chancellor announced £3.5 billion in the spring statement to support our back to work programmes to raise people out of poverty.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

One of the crowning achievements of the previous Labour Government was to lift 1 million children out of poverty. How does the Secretary of State think that that compares with the Conservatives’ record given that new figures show that children are experiencing destitution, and that that has actually tripled since 2017?

[Mel Stride]

I think that our record is extremely clear. Since 2010, we have 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty, 400,000 fewer children in absolute poverty, and 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty. Under Labour’s watch, we had 1 million people parked on long-term sickness benefits for more than 10 years.

Business of the House

Debate between Mel Stride and Tonia Antoniazzi

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

That would be an excellent subject for debate; I say that as the father of three daughters who are enthused by subjects such as women’s football. It is great to see women getting more and more involved in a variety of our national sports.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

Teachers, social workers, volunteers and NHS workers are all subject to enhanced disclosure checks, but Members of Parliament are not. I would like us to have a debate on the Floor of the House about why, with all the reputational damage that has been going on, we too are not subject to those checks.

[Mel Stride]

An Adjournment debate would be an opportunity to interrogate a Minister on that specific issue.

As this is the last question, may I thank Members for all their questions this week? Who knows what will happen next week, but it has been a great pleasure to take all their questions from the Dispatch Box.

Pubs: Business Rates

Debate between Mel Stride and Tonia Antoniazzi

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Of course, I am not familiar with that particular establishment—although I would probably like to be—or with its current trading conditions. My point is that a pub, or any business for that matter, will be under pressure for a variety of reasons—my hon. Friend the Member for Henley raised, for example, the change in drinking habits as one factor. Importantly, the Government have a responsibility on the tax front to ensure that we ease those pressures to the greatest extent that we can, while taking a balanced and responsible approach to the economy.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I want to raise the plight of some of the Gower pubs. Owing to the rural nature on the peninsula, many are closing and have great challenges ahead. As the Minister mentioned, those challenges are for a range of reasons, but several members of the community and I have set up a working party to address that. I look forward to informing the Minister of the good work that we will do.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I would be very interested in hearing from her and her working group when she is ready.

It is important to say that pubs are typically central to high streets. It is an issue not only of providing whatever support we can in terms of reliefs, many of which I have outlined, but of assisting high streets, and pubs as part of high streets, to evolve and transition. The high street is under a huge amount of pressure, not least through the online retail marketplace, which takes around 18% of all retail sales. A decade ago, it would have been a fraction of that.

The high street, and pubs at the heart of it, will therefore have to transition. That is why we made an important announcement in the Budget about the future high streets fund—£675 million to assist local areas to develop plans to ensure that they transition their high streets into a format that works more effectively. That includes the review being conducted at the moment into the change-of-use regime, and how it operates to allow certain businesses to change to different businesses, or to retail premises.

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

Debate between Mel Stride and Tonia Antoniazzi

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

No. If the House agrees to this deal, and we proceed to get a deal with the European Union that does all the things that I have many times in response to this urgent question outlined to Members, it will provide confidence. It will provide further investment. It will support jobs. It will seek growth. It will see unemployment, which is already at a 45-year low, nice and low, where we want it to be. So I would urge the hon. Gentleman to support the deal and to do so on behalf of his constituents.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

Today, I am absolutely incandescent, because it is insulting to my constituents that that piece of paper that the Minister has produced today is going to make them poorer. The Minister has not had the decency to compare the current situation with what it would be like to remain in the EU. Welsh farming unions are being told that they have to accept the deal because otherwise there will be no deal. That is scaremongering—absolute scaremongering. I am fed up with people coming to me and telling me to back the withdrawal agreement. I will not back something that makes my constituents, my family and everybody else poorer. I am an unapologetic people’s campaigner; I want a people’s vote. This spin—what the Minister is saying and what the Government are saying to the people—is absolutely wrong. The Government are misleading them, and I am angry. Everybody is angry. We want a people’s vote.

[Mel Stride]

A second referendum would be deeply divisive for our country. It would send a signal—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady has had her say. She and I campaigned on the same side in the referendum. I wanted us to stay in the European Union, but the difference between us is that I am a democrat, and I believe that when we have a referendum, which was widely debated over a long period, and a result is given, on the highest turnout of any electoral contest in our country, that result must be respected.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Debate between Mel Stride and Tonia Antoniazzi

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is this Government, for example, who raised the personal allowance to £11,500, taking 3 million to 4 million of the lowest paid out of tax altogether. It is this Government who brought in the national living wage, and it is this Government who will go on ensuring that those who have the broadest shoulders pay their fair share of tax.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that HMRC would serve the Government and the people of the United Kingdom better by challenging those who bend the rules rather than by fining my law-abiding constituent, Sheila, £1,600 for a £135 yearly tax bill, when all that she had failed to do was to press “enter” at the end of the form?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady raises an important point.

There is an assumption on the Opposition Benches that nothing is being done about these various issues. The right hon. Member for Barking referred to an element of the “Panorama” programme on the Panama papers that described income that had been diverted overseas and then loaned back to individuals. That is known as disguised remuneration. She rightly asked what the Government were doing about such practices. Let me point her in the direction of the Finance Bill that has just gone through this House. On the matter of disguised remuneration, individuals will be given until 2019 to clear up those arrangements. Otherwise, they will pay a penalty. It is as simple as that.