Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

T5. Will my right hon. Friend the Chancellor confirm that he is absolutely committed to maintaining the independence of the Bank of England?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Yes, it is a vital cornerstone of our institutional structure that the Bank of England remains independent, and those who have suggested that they would seek to politicise appointments to the Bank of England would be doing a great disservice to this country and our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

As the Prime Minister has explained to the House many times, the deal that we have negotiated with the European Union provides for most of the benefits of a customs union, while still enabling the United Kingdom in certain circumstances to be able to strike trade deals with third countries. That is a win-win outcome, and the House should get behind it.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Is it the intention that we will be publishing our draft tariff schedule in the event of no deal before the meaningful vote?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor mentioned frozen Syrian assets. There has been a long-running cross-party campaign to unfreeze frozen Libyan assets so that that money can be spent compensating the victims of Libyan-sponsored IRA terrorism. Will my right hon. Friend look at that again? Is he aware that it would require a UN resolution? Is that the case with Syria’s assets, and does he think that all the members of the UN Security Council would be in favour of such a move?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

My hon. Friend tempts me down a complex route. I will look at that again; I am familiar with the issue from my time as Foreign Secretary. The decision that Ministers have to make around the freezing of assets is a quasi-judicial one, and it has to be made very carefully in the light of the specific facts. There are great complexities in Libya, where in some cases competing authorities are claiming ownership of assets.

Spring Statement

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am clear—I think I have alluded to this already—that one of the factors depressing the forecast growth is the uncertainty that still exists around the economy. If the hon. Lady, like me, expects that uncertainty to dissipate over time, she should look through it to the fundamentals of our economy and its underlying strengths. This economy is in a fundamentally good shape. Once we can restore confidence and certainty about our future path, I am confident that those fundamental strengths will deliver increased economic growth.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend made a fantastic statement. Does he join me in welcoming the 65% fall in youth unemployment in South Suffolk since 2010? Does he agree that while my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) is entirely right to mention inter- generational fairness, the worst form of intergenerational unfairness would have been to allow our youth unemployment to peak at socially dangerous levels, as it has in the rest of Europe?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I welcome the very large fall in youth unemployment in his constituency, but that will be from a base that was very much lower than what has come to be considered normal by many of our European neighbours. As he rightly says, this is not just an economic factor, but a societal factor. Persistent high levels of youth unemployment have a hugely damaging effect, as we have discovered in the past in this country to our cost. If someone is unemployed during their formative years, they are far more likely to remain unemployed and unemployable for the rest of their working lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

If we want a sustainable rise in wages, we will need higher productivity. Does my right hon. Friend therefore welcome the recent improvement in the figures?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Yes. We have had two quarters of good productivity data, but we should recognise that the productivity challenge we face is long term. The Government have taken a range of measures to address it and we will watch the evolution of the data very carefully, but there is certainly absolutely no scope for any complacency about the scale of the challenge we face, and we are determined to rise to it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. May I make one simple request about the Budget: whatever measures he announces, he resists the temptation to pay for them by billing our grandchildren? Instead, will he continue the excellent work that has seen us slash by nearly three quarters, as a percentage of GDP, the record post-war deficit that we inherited from the Labour Government?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes. It is not responsible to make so-called hard choices by loading the price on to the next generation and the generation after that. We have to make difficult decisions and we have to bear the consequences of those decisions. At £65,000 per household, our public debt is still far too high, so I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we will continue the plans that we have announced to reduce the deficit in a measured and balanced way to ensure that debt falls as a share of GDP.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Debt has climbed steadily since 2009 as a result of the high levels of deficit. Since 2010, we have reduced the deficit by three quarters, so national debt will now peak at just under 90% of GDP this year. As the OBR’s “Fiscal risks report” of last week makes clear, that level of debt—a legacy of Labour’s recession—leaves us vulnerable to future shocks, which is why the Government have committed to eliminating the deficit and reducing the level of debt as a share of GDP. As a result of the actions taken to bring the public finances back under control, the OBR now forecasts that debt will start falling next year and will be below 80% of GDP by 2021-22.

[James Cartlidge]

Those figures are welcome, but will my right hon. Friend confirm that were the Government to pursue a policy of wiping all outstanding student debt, that would cost in excess of £100 billion and cause the national debt to surge? Will he also confirm that the biggest beneficiaries by far would be the top-earning graduates in the country?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He might have added that were anyone to suggest that they were able to do that, they could be accused of practising a deception on the people to whom they were offering that proposal. The cruelty of that would become apparent when it would have to be admitted that the proposal could not possibly be delivered. We face a debt challenge in this country, and we cannot borrow our way out of debt. The Opposition would do well to acknowledge that. Stronger growth and sound public finances are the only sustainable way to deliver better public services, higher real wages and increased living standards.

Class 4 National Insurance Contributions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, although I remind my hon. Friend that we have embarked on an efficiency review, seeking to make a further £3.5 billion of efficiency savings in departmental expenditure, of which I have committed to reinvest £1 billion in our priorities. Getting the balance right between taxation, efficiency in public expenditure and borrowing where it is right to do so is important. I have borrowed for infrastructure investment and for productivity-enhancing infrastructure in the autumn statement. Where it is right to do so, we will borrow, but it is not right to borrow for everyday expenditure in the way that the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington suggests.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Auto-enrolment has been a great success story for the employed, but there is a major practical barrier in selling it to the self-employed, who do not normally have one single payroll controller. However, is my right hon. Friend aware that, with the rise of the gig economy, millions of workers are self-employed and, effectively, working for one big company? Is he also aware that, when I asked representatives of Hermes, Deliveroo, Amazon and Uber in the Select Committee whether they would be willing to consider such a scheme for their gig workers, they were very positive about the prospect of the Government bringing one in?

[Mr Hammond]

As I have said, we will include looking at auto-enrolment in the broader review that we are going to undertake of the differences in treatment between employees and the self-employed, which is clearly a significant area.

Autumn Statement

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, I recognise that the fact that we have to respond to the OBR report in the spring can easily be caricatured as swapping an autumn statement and a spring Budget for a spring statement and an autumn Budget. All I can say is that I promise it will not be like that. The intention is clearly to move to a single event each year when, in normal times, we will make tax changes, but it is prudent, especially in these times, to reserve the right in extremis to announce tax measures at the secondary event, if absolutely necessary. The hon. Gentleman poses a perfectly sensible question. My interpretation of the figures in the table is not the same as his, but I would be very happy to engage in a discussion with him offline.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Although my right hon. Friend has made it clear that he is not a conduit for the Transport Secretary, may I nevertheless welcome the £80 million for smart ticketing included in his statement? He is interested in productivity and our flexible labour market. Is he aware that we have many constituents who commute three or four days a week at most and are forced to pay for a full-time travelcard? In his programme of smart ticketing, will he look at that?

[Mr Hammond]

I am aware because I was once upon a time the Transport Secretary. I am convinced that smart ticketing is the future for us. Smart ticketing allows us not only to deal with those commuters who do not travel every day, but to explore options where people might wish to travel in the peak period on some days but are able to travel off-peak on other days. If we could shift just 10% or 15% of commuters from the peak to the off-peak, we would change dramatically the pressure on rail infrastructure around London and other major cities, so that is definitely the future.

EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and James Cartlidge

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The right hon. Lady is right. The deal on the table between Switzerland and China is deeply asymmetric and deeply unfavourable to the Swiss, but reflects the mismatch in scale between those two marketplaces. Being part of the world’s largest economic bloc allows us to stare squarely into the eyes of Chinese and American interlocutors when negotiating trade deals.

It is a well rehearsed and well understood fact that 44% of the UK’s exports go to the EU, but it is an underestimate because it addresses only exports to the EU. If we take into account the countries with which the EU has a free trade agreement—destinations for another £56 billion of British exports—the figure goes up to 56%, which does not take into account any of the countries with which the EU is negotiating free trade agreements. If we included them, we would be talking about more than 80% of UK exports going either to the EU or to countries with which the EU had trade agreements. At the very least, more than half of Britain’s exports would therefore be at risk if we left the European Union, and it could take a decade or more to put in place new deals with the EU 27 and the 53 other countries with which we have free trade agreements. It is not about choosing between growing our trade with the EU or with the rest of the globe—as the figures show, our EU membership is key to both.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Is not the central absurdity of talking about the EU deficit and the surplus with the rest of the world that our trade with the latter is largely conducted through foreign companies—Japanese car makers and American banks, for example—that base themselves here precisely because we are in the single market? They trade with the whole world—they do not see it as two different places. We as a country should have that attitude.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. The world’s supply chain has globalised itself. If I am honest, when I listen to the arguments of some of our opponents in this debate, although framed in terms of hostility to the European Union, I sometimes wonder whether what I am hearing is hostility to the globalisation of our economy.

What is true for trade is also true for investment—the other side of the coin. The reality is that Britain benefits hugely as a platform for investment from both EU and non-EU countries, many of which see us as a gateway to the rest of the European Union. They come here because of our language, our skills, our flexible labour market and our domestic regulatory environment, but if I talk to foreign companies based in this country—I have lots of them in my constituency, and other Members will be in a similar position—and to others around the world thinking of making that investment decision, it is clear that the single most important factor in the decision making of most of them is our membership of the European Union. Our membership makes Britain a launch pad for doing business with the rest of Europe. Almost three in every four foreign investors cite our access to the European market as a principal reason for investment in the UK. If we lost that access, we would lose the investment. It is as simple as that.