Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Sammy Wilson and David Lammy

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I want to make some progress, but I have said that this party would negotiate, just as we negotiated the Good Friday agreement.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The shadow Secretary of State has made much of the Government abandoning their obligations, but surely the obligation in the protocol was designed from the EU’s point of view to protect the EU single market. How does this Bill not give that guarantee to the EU, when goods going into the Republic will be checked, when there will be severe penalties on those who try evade those checks and when any firms producing in Northern Ireland will have to comply with EU rules when they are sending goods to the Republic? Surely that safeguards the single market and the obligations will be met.

[Mr Lammy]

Yes, it needs to be improved, but the question is how. What is the best method to achieve that? Is breaking international law and placing ourselves in a situation in which our EU partners do not trust us the best way?

Debate on the Address

Debate between Sammy Wilson and David Lammy

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point in relation to the escalator that should be fundamental to the welfare system, but with respect that is not the point I am making. We are reducing the supply of social housing, and many people on a decent wage simply do not have the assets to reduce the demand for social housing. That seems wrong-headed. In the previous Parliament, we heard much about a council house being built for every one that came off the market. That has not happened and it will not happen with housing association properties either.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept, if the properties are not coming on to the market because tenants have security and stay in them all their lives, that if a mechanism could be found whereby the capital receipts had to be put into new housing, that would increase the supply of housing available for social tenants?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is related to the ability of local authorities to borrow in order to build. However, even if they were given powers to borrow in order to build, they would want the security that the house they had built would not come off the market three years later. We have therefore created a terrible vicious circle that will lead to tremendous hardship, I suspect, in the next five years.

There are real concerns about asking the Metropolitan police to find another £700 million-worth of cuts. It took 2,500 officers to restore order to many of the streets of this country during the 2011 riots. That is exactly the number of officers we have lost over this last period. It is true that response times are good, but neighbourhood policing is disappearing and the crime that bedevils deprived areas is rampant. We should think again.

Air Passenger Duty

Debate between Sammy Wilson and David Lammy

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

I do not want to get into the complexities of how APD is calculated, but anyone with just a basic knowledge of geography knows that the Caribbean is closer than California, yet California is regarded as closer in terms of calculating APD. Even here there are anomalies that have regional impacts.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Have the Northern Irish been able to forge any solidarity with the small nations in the Caribbean that are suffering in this way? The hon. Gentleman will recognise that there are many British citizens of Caribbean background and, as they are certainly not the country’s richest citizens, many of them cannot afford, as a family of four, £332 extra in APD to fly back to the Caribbean on a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

[Sammy Wilson]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Although this tax is regarded by some as a tax on the rich and therefore a progressive tax, it is not: it is a flat-rate tax and therefore it is a regressive tax. Many of those who are hit are travelling on holidays or to see their families, and they save up for that even though many of them are on low incomes. Indeed, 45% of those who are hit by it would be regarded as being on medium or below-medium incomes, yet they pay the same tax as those earning more than £80,000. Leaving aside the impact on growth, on exports and on industry, the regressive nature of the tax makes it an unfair tax, and that is another reason this issue needs to be looked at.