Browse content similar to 14/03/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Hello and welcome to Monday in Parliament, our look | :00:13. | :00:14. | |
A tabloid newspaper story about the Queen's views on the EU - | :00:15. | :00:21. | |
If the Justice Secretary were to have disclosed | :00:22. | :00:28. | |
this information, he would have breached the principle | :00:29. | :00:31. | |
of confidentiality and prayed in aid the monarch in | :00:32. | :00:33. | |
The Work and Pensions Secretary defends the Government's record | :00:34. | :00:38. | |
We spend more than ?50 billion, which is more than any other OECD | :00:39. | :00:47. | |
country of equivalent size, such as Germany. | :00:48. | :00:48. | |
And taking aid to those who need it most but, | :00:49. | :00:54. | |
in offering help to everyone who needs it, muslim charity workers | :00:55. | :00:56. | |
explain one more peril that they face. | :00:57. | :01:03. | |
The Guantanamo Bay danger, which is that you are photographed and in the | :01:04. | :01:10. | |
background is a known terrorist. Or you are in an area and you get | :01:11. | :01:13. | |
hoovered up because you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. | :01:14. | :01:16. | |
Calls for the Justice Secretary to be investigated over claims | :01:17. | :01:18. | |
the Queen is Eurosceptic have been dismissed by the Government. | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
The Sun newspaper published a story saying the Queen had | :01:22. | :01:24. | |
alleged bust-up with the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, | :01:25. | :01:30. | |
who was at the time the lord president of the Privy Council. | :01:31. | :01:32. | |
Buckingham Palace has made a complaint to the press regulator | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
Ipso, and stressed the monarch is politically neutral. | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
Michael Gove has denied briefing the Sun newspaper, | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
but declined to deny being the source of the claim. | :01:43. | :01:46. | |
Her Majesty cannot be supposed to have a private opinion | :01:47. | :01:50. | |
apart from that of her responsible advisers and any attempts | :01:51. | :01:56. | |
to use her name in debate to influence the judgment | :01:57. | :01:59. | |
of Parliament is immediately checked and censured. | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
A minister is, however, allowed to make a statement of facts | :02:05. | :02:08. | |
in which the Sovereign's name may be concerned. | :02:09. | :02:12. | |
I earnestly hope that honourable members will spare me | :02:13. | :02:15. | |
the embarrassment of having to stop them | :02:16. | :02:23. | |
in their tracks if they seek to draw to the House's attention any alleged | :02:24. | :02:26. | |
views of the monarch on the EU or indeed anything else. | :02:27. | :02:28. | |
Three members have categorically denied that they are the source | :02:29. | :02:31. | |
of the justice... They are the source... | :02:32. | :02:33. | |
Yet the Justice Secretary has only | :02:34. | :02:40. | |
said, I don't know how the Sun got all its information. | :02:41. | :02:42. | |
Mr Speaker, the Sovereign's constitutional | :02:43. | :02:48. | |
impartiality is an established principle of our democracy. | :02:49. | :02:53. | |
It is incumbent on those in political | :02:54. | :02:55. | |
office to ensure that this remains the case. | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
Such a breach would be particularly serious and significant. | :03:01. | :03:04. | |
If the Justice Secretary were to have | :03:05. | :03:06. | |
disclosed this information, he would have breached the principle | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
of confidentiality and prayed in aid the monarch in a politically | :03:11. | :03:13. | |
Last week a national newspaper published a story allegedly based | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
on a conversation that took place at a lunch | :03:19. | :03:22. | |
However, my predecessor, the then Lord President, | :03:23. | :03:26. | |
the right-honourable member for Sheffield Hallam, | :03:27. | :03:28. | |
has said very clearly that the story | :03:29. | :03:30. | |
As the House is aware, Buckingham Palace has referred | :03:31. | :03:36. | |
the matter to Ipso, the new press complaints body. | :03:37. | :03:38. | |
Given all of this, Mr Speaker, I do not | :03:39. | :03:44. | |
believe there is any need for further action here. | :03:45. | :03:47. | |
Does my right-honourable friend agree with me that | :03:48. | :03:51. | |
what we are witnessing is a poorly disguised example of a tendency | :03:52. | :03:54. | |
of the party opposite to play the man | :03:55. | :03:56. | |
and not the ball in the circumstances? | :03:57. | :04:05. | |
Will he further agree with me that the workings | :04:06. | :04:07. | |
of the Privy Council are a matter for | :04:08. | :04:09. | |
the Privy Council and are not the same rules that apply | :04:10. | :04:11. | |
to ministers who are tangible to this House of Commons? | :04:12. | :04:14. | |
My honourable friend is absolutely right and it is worth | :04:15. | :04:17. | |
saying, Mr Speaker, that the conversation | :04:18. | :04:19. | |
that is alleged to have taken place, which the former Lord President | :04:20. | :04:21. | |
said did not take place, actually did not take these | :04:22. | :04:24. | |
I've always considered it an honour had a privileged to be a member | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
of the Privy Council and I take it very seriously the trust | :04:31. | :04:33. | |
who are part of that Privy Council. | :04:34. | :04:36. | |
I think the allegations carry a great deal of | :04:37. | :04:38. | |
currency and, if they are not properly investigated, | :04:39. | :04:40. | |
they can undermine the whole of | :04:41. | :04:42. | |
the Privy Council and everybody in it. | :04:43. | :04:44. | |
I think the Prime Minister was right to say | :04:45. | :04:47. | |
that it would be very serious if a member of the Privy Council | :04:48. | :04:51. | |
was the source of the Sun newspaper story | :04:52. | :04:56. | |
and, therefore, I think it is beholding upon the Government | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
to ask the member involved to come to this | :05:02. | :05:04. | |
House and to make a statement himself to lay this matter to rest. | :05:05. | :05:09. | |
As the Lord High Chancellor is the keeper of the Queen's | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
conscience, is it not inconceivable that he could misapply his | :05:14. | :05:15. | |
Is it not further important that in the Privy Council oath, | :05:16. | :05:22. | |
privy counsellors swear that they will do their uttermost | :05:23. | :05:24. | |
to bear faith and allegiance unto the Queen's Majesty | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
and will assist and defend all jurisdictions, pre-eminences | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
and authorities granted to Her Majesty, and annexed | :05:32. | :05:36. | |
to the Crown by acts of Parliament or otherwise, | :05:37. | :05:38. | |
princes, persons, prelates, states or potentates. | :05:39. | :05:40. | |
How, therefore, how, therefore, could members of the Privy Council | :05:41. | :05:49. | |
go off and be European Commissioners swearing | :05:50. | :05:51. | |
I have never been to this palace, | :05:52. | :05:53. | |
I don't know what takes place but the most bizarre thing, | :05:54. | :06:03. | |
for me, what on earth was the Queen doing | :06:04. | :06:05. | |
Mr Speaker, I think the response to the honourable gentleman's | :06:06. | :06:29. | |
comment across the House, I think, suggests | :06:30. | :06:31. | |
not everyone disagrees with the views put forward. | :06:32. | :06:38. | |
What I'd say to him is I hope, before the end his illustrious | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
career, he does have a chance to go to the Palace. | :06:42. | :06:44. | |
Earlier, Opposition MPs lambasted ministers over the latest cuts | :06:45. | :06:51. | |
to disability benefits, with one accusing the Government | :06:52. | :06:53. | |
of waging an on-going war against disabled people. | :06:54. | :06:56. | |
Iain Duncan Smith and his team were appearing in the Commons | :06:57. | :06:58. | |
for the first time since the announcement last Friday | :06:59. | :07:01. | |
of changes to Personal Independence Payments, | :07:02. | :07:03. | |
people with the extra costs associated | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
with disabilities and long-term illnesses. | :07:08. | :07:13. | |
He is going to take away ?1.2 billion, completely | :07:14. | :07:23. | |
eroding access to Personal Independence Payments for 200,000 | :07:24. | :07:25. | |
people and cutting it by one third from ?70 to ?50 | :07:26. | :07:28. | |
People who are unable, quite often, to use the toilet | :07:29. | :07:31. | |
That comes on top of the cuts to ESA that went through | :07:32. | :07:37. | |
Before I came here this afternoon, Mr Speaker, I asked disabled people | :07:38. | :07:45. | |
what question they would like to put to the Secretary of State and one | :07:46. | :07:48. | |
answer stood out and it was quite simply, | :07:49. | :07:54. | |
Can I just remind the honourable gentleman | :07:55. | :07:58. | |
that under this Government, spending on sickness and disability | :07:59. | :08:01. | |
We spend over ?50 billion, which is more than any | :08:02. | :08:09. | |
other OECD country of our equivalent size, such as Germany. | :08:10. | :08:11. | |
I'm proud of that, by the way, and even under | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
these changes, we will continue to see spending on PIP rise every | :08:17. | :08:19. | |
year all the way to the end of this Parliament. | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
A report published just yesterday from the Women's Budget | :08:24. | :08:26. | |
Group, highlighted that this Tory Government's policies | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
are predicted to be more regressive even than its coalition predecessor, | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
highlighting that single parent women and single | :08:35. | :08:37. | |
female pensioners will see their standard of living reduced | :08:38. | :08:39. | |
His department's policies are negatively | :08:40. | :08:45. | |
Will he go back to the drawing board to | :08:46. | :08:50. | |
create a social security and pension system that is fair and equitable? | :08:51. | :08:54. | |
It comes a little bit rich from the Scottish Nationalists, | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
who are in government in Scotland, who now face | :09:00. | :09:02. | |
a 15 billion deficit which would have absolutely racked | :09:03. | :09:04. | |
them had they gone for independence and not once | :09:05. | :09:06. | |
do we ever hear about the tough choices they might have to take | :09:07. | :09:10. | |
It is a nonanswer, a nonanswer, a hallmark of this dodgy, | :09:11. | :09:13. | |
Let's see if they can do a bit better with this one. | :09:14. | :09:25. | |
Social Security spending on disabled people, as a percentage of GDP, | :09:26. | :09:27. | |
The Conservative manifesto for the last | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
general election pledged not to cut Social Security support | :09:33. | :09:34. | |
How and why has the Government gone back on this commitment and how much | :09:35. | :09:44. | |
more do they think disabled people will be able to take? | :09:45. | :09:50. | |
We actually spend almost double what the Germans spend. | :09:51. | :09:52. | |
We spend about 6% of our Government spending, which is more | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
than we spent on our police and defence | :09:57. | :09:58. | |
Why does the Government have such a compulsive | :09:59. | :10:01. | |
need to hit out at disabled people at every opportunity? | :10:02. | :10:03. | |
Doesn't he realise how difficult it is for | :10:04. | :10:07. | |
these people to lead their lives and yet, at the same | :10:08. | :10:10. | |
time their income is being undermined by the Government? | :10:11. | :10:13. | |
This can only be described as an ongoing Tory war | :10:14. | :10:15. | |
DWP confirmed last week that less than 365,000 | :10:16. | :10:22. | |
people are actually on Universal Credit. | :10:23. | :10:24. | |
A staggeringly pathetic success rate of 4.4%. | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
Isn't the only reason the Government is pushing out | :10:29. | :10:34. | |
Universal Credit now to deliver the tax credit cut that will hit | :10:35. | :10:37. | |
thousands of working families in my constituency? | :10:38. | :10:38. | |
Isn't it time the quiet man went silent on pretending | :10:39. | :10:41. | |
I bet that looked good when he wrote it | :10:42. | :10:49. | |
Mr Speaker, my constituent Nick Dale is 36 years | :10:50. | :10:53. | |
old with a complex range of disabilities. | :10:54. | :10:55. | |
His care package has just been reduced by Cambridge | :10:56. | :10:57. | |
county council from 17 hours a week to six and a half. | :10:58. | :11:00. | |
The council tells him he shouldn't see this negatively | :11:01. | :11:02. | |
but as a way, and I quote, of utilising the strength | :11:03. | :11:05. | |
and resources that he may not realise he has | :11:06. | :11:07. | |
His mother is appalled by his loss and the | :11:08. | :11:11. | |
patronising tone borrowed from the Government. | :11:12. | :11:17. | |
Mr Speaker, if I lift the Secretary of State's wallet in the lobby | :11:18. | :11:20. | |
tonight, would it help him utilise hidden strength he didn't | :11:21. | :11:23. | |
Or would you be as furious as I am about the way Nick | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
The Minister Justin Tomlinson said he would be happy to take a look | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
Plans to reduce subsidies for onshore wind farms should have | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
no effect on business, the energy minister's insisted. | :11:36. | :11:38. | |
The early exit for cash incentives for green energy | :11:39. | :11:41. | |
was removed by peers in the House of Lords | :11:42. | :11:43. | |
but the Government has insisted on the measure, | :11:44. | :11:45. | |
saying it was an election manifesto commitment. | :11:46. | :11:49. | |
But other parties have objected, saying action needs to be taken | :11:50. | :11:51. | |
The SNP have called the move a betrayal, | :11:52. | :11:54. | |
this would not happen when the power | :11:55. | :11:57. | |
The power over the renewables obligation | :11:58. | :12:06. | |
against the explicit undertaking that the Government had given | :12:07. | :12:08. | |
I think there is an element of trust and betrayal of trust that has come | :12:09. | :12:16. | |
That is something that has woven its way through the integrity | :12:17. | :12:25. | |
--That is something that has woven its way through the entirety | :12:26. | :12:28. | |
of the Government's handling of onshore wind and the closure | :12:29. | :12:30. | |
The industry had, for a long period of time, I think, | :12:31. | :12:34. | |
trust in the Government. That trust has vanished. | :12:35. | :12:36. | |
We want to know that the power is there | :12:37. | :12:39. | |
--whether the wind is blowing or not. | :12:40. | :12:46. | |
Whether the sun is shining or not, people expect continuous power | :12:47. | :12:49. | |
to light and power their homes and industry needs continuous power | :12:50. | :12:52. | |
So on all these grounds, wind doesn't cut the mustard, | :12:53. | :12:55. | |
Mr Deputy Speaker, and I'm very glad we now have a Government | :12:56. | :12:58. | |
I think when history comes to be written of the last 15 or 20 years, | :12:59. | :13:05. | |
what the European Union is doing and what the | :13:06. | :13:08. | |
previous Labour Government did on energy policy will go down as one | :13:09. | :13:10. | |
The Government remains committed to end subsidies for onshore wind. I am | :13:11. | :13:28. | |
grateful to my honourable friend for their clear support expressed during | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
this debate. But the Government is also conscious of the need for | :13:33. | :13:35. | |
industry certainty and so, in response to the question from the | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
honourable member for Southampton Test, I would like to make it clear | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
that if Royal Assent for this bill goes beyond the 31st of March, the | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
Government intends that the provisions to come into force from | :13:48. | :13:50. | |
the date of Royal Assent and does not intend to backdate the | :13:51. | :13:51. | |
provisions. That, in each of the last five | :13:52. | :13:53. | |
months, the record for a global temperatures has been broken | :13:54. | :14:00. | |
and every month with February And then this other fact, | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
Mr Deputy Speaker, that atmospheric concentrations | :14:05. | :14:10. | |
of CO2, and it's hard to get your head round this, | :14:11. | :14:12. | |
are now higher than they have been for at least | :14:13. | :14:16. | |
a million years. Because that is what | :14:17. | :14:18. | |
the scientists tell us. The UK's renewable energy | :14:19. | :14:22. | |
potential is vast. The costs of solar and | :14:23. | :14:25. | |
wind power is falling. The need to leave | :14:26. | :14:27. | |
the vast majority of fossil fuel reserves on the ground | :14:28. | :14:29. | |
gets more mainstream by the week. There is no longer a case | :14:30. | :14:32. | |
for using the EU emissions trading system as an excuse | :14:33. | :14:35. | |
for not meeting our own carbon budgets by cutting our own | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
emissions here in the UK. The global carbon budget | :14:40. | :14:41. | |
is rapidly shrinking and there is simply no | :14:42. | :14:43. | |
room for free riders. I think the UK should be leading | :14:44. | :14:45. | |
the race to a zero carbon economy, not weaseling our way out | :14:46. | :14:48. | |
of making a fair contribution. You're watching | :14:49. | :14:54. | |
Monday in Parliament. Still to come - a bit | :14:55. | :14:56. | |
of a depressing thought for anyone I suspect that most members of this | :14:57. | :14:59. | |
House pay more in income tax But first, direct intervention | :15:00. | :15:04. | |
from the Government is needed with South Yorkshire Police | :15:05. | :15:12. | |
to improve the force's handling of cases of child sex abuse, | :15:13. | :15:15. | |
the House of Lords has been told. A Lib Dem peer expressed concern | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
at the way the cases He said the figures | :15:20. | :15:22. | |
spoke for themselves. This has been highlighted | :15:23. | :15:26. | |
by the recent Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary | :15:27. | :15:29. | |
report which said that South Yorkshire Police still needs | :15:30. | :15:33. | |
to make major improvements, and the release on Friday | :15:34. | :15:36. | |
of a BBC report through freedom of information | :15:37. | :15:40. | |
requests of ten forces across the country, that showed that | :15:41. | :15:43. | |
one in five cases that are reported but in South Yorkshire | :15:44. | :15:48. | |
it is one in 16. Very serious claims and, | :15:49. | :15:55. | |
in fact, that report, the HMIC report, at least did point | :15:56. | :15:58. | |
to the fact that there had We have got Professor | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
John Drew, who is looking independently into that, | :16:03. | :16:05. | |
and we will be following very carefully what his responses | :16:06. | :16:08. | |
were, but it is very important that that particular area, | :16:09. | :16:12. | |
which has been the centre of so many of the cases, | :16:13. | :16:15. | |
has the public confidence, and I know that is something we will | :16:16. | :16:21. | |
be watching very carefully indeed. An independent peer also raised | :16:22. | :16:25. | |
the importance of good structures. Is the Minister aware | :16:26. | :16:28. | |
that there are a large number of different models being | :16:29. | :16:31. | |
tried across the country of cooperation between | :16:32. | :16:34. | |
the police and other agencies? Indeed, my own county of Norfolk | :16:35. | :16:37. | |
is attempting to put services closely together and I am grateful | :16:38. | :16:42. | |
for the investigation into the local boards, | :16:43. | :16:46. | |
but what is the Government doing to ensure that the practice | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
is pooled together, and that the best practice | :16:51. | :16:54. | |
is promulgated right Lord Bates said this was vital work | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
to prevent abuse in the future. The Government's been accused | :16:59. | :17:04. | |
of cutting off its nose to spite its face by pushing away | :17:05. | :17:07. | |
Muslim charities best placed to offer aid to victims | :17:08. | :17:10. | |
of the refugee crisis. Two former international | :17:11. | :17:13. | |
development secretaries, from very different ends | :17:14. | :17:16. | |
of the political spectrum, came together to tell | :17:17. | :17:18. | |
MPs change was needed. The Muslim community | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
tends to be big givers, so there's tens, indeed, | :17:23. | :17:25. | |
hundreds of millions of pounds donated, mostly to Muslim charities, | :17:26. | :17:28. | |
not exclusively by Muslims but overwhelmingly, | :17:29. | :17:32. | |
and not working exclusively, either, in the Muslim | :17:33. | :17:35. | |
world, but predominantly, because of where the | :17:36. | :17:37. | |
crises are currently. And since Islamic Relief, | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
which is the oldest and biggest and the one which I think | :17:42. | :17:45. | |
both of us know best because it was in Birmingham | :17:46. | :17:48. | |
and we worked with them when we were in Government, | :17:49. | :17:51. | |
was listed in, I think, an Israeli Ministry of Defence list | :17:52. | :17:56. | |
of questionable NGOs or something, Suddenly in Britain, and DFI, | :17:57. | :18:02. | |
they were pushing them away and, as someone said to me, | :18:03. | :18:09. | |
if Oxfam or something got criticised by a foreign Government, | :18:10. | :18:14. | |
you would expect our Government to say, what is it? | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
There was no detail. And look into it and try | :18:19. | :18:20. | |
and sort it rather than say, oh, well, some people don't | :18:21. | :18:24. | |
like you so we will push you away. These Muslim charities | :18:25. | :18:28. | |
are doing fantastic work. They can often get to places that | :18:29. | :18:30. | |
others simply cannot reach, and they are very heavily supported | :18:31. | :18:34. | |
within the United Kingdom. ?300 million has been donated | :18:35. | :18:38. | |
from amongst British Muslims, and we saw for ourselves the way | :18:39. | :18:46. | |
this was going into extremely difficult and troubled places, | :18:47. | :18:49. | |
keeping displaced people alive. And we need to give this | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
very strong support, and Britain has been right | :18:55. | :18:56. | |
at the front in terms of using our taxpayers' money to help | :18:57. | :18:59. | |
dispossessed people and, in a way, we are sort of cutting | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
off our nose to spite our face if we are not supporting those | :19:05. | :19:08. | |
British charities which are Andrew Mitchell said the whole point | :19:09. | :19:10. | |
of humanitarian support was that it was offered to everyone, | :19:11. | :19:17. | |
regardless of who they were. Those very brave people, | :19:18. | :19:22. | |
who are humanitarian actors, who are taking relief, | :19:23. | :19:25. | |
and help and support, to those who are desperately | :19:26. | :19:27. | |
in peril, The best example of this, of course, | :19:28. | :19:31. | |
is the International Red Cross. But they are there purely | :19:32. | :19:37. | |
to help people whose... And, therefore, by placing them | :19:38. | :19:40. | |
in a position which one of them, when we were there, referred | :19:41. | :19:46. | |
to as the Guantanamo Bay danger, which is that you are photographed | :19:47. | :19:50. | |
and in the background Or you are in an area | :19:51. | :19:53. | |
and get hoovered up because you are in the wrong | :19:54. | :20:00. | |
place at the wrong time, and find yourself somewhere | :20:01. | :20:02. | |
you don't want to be, so there is a real danger to some | :20:03. | :20:04. | |
of these humanitarian actors that this terrorist legislation | :20:05. | :20:07. | |
not only restricts their financing but actually places an added burden | :20:08. | :20:11. | |
upon them, when they are doing dangerous and difficult work | :20:12. | :20:15. | |
relieving people in very difficult circumstances, and that, too, | :20:16. | :20:19. | |
needs to be addressed. The UK NGOs are procuring | :20:20. | :20:22. | |
and bringing stuff right up to the border and then | :20:23. | :20:25. | |
handing it over. It is Syrians who are doing | :20:26. | :20:27. | |
the delivery inside, and it was one of them, a doctor, | :20:28. | :20:29. | |
who said, sometimes they will end up | :20:30. | :20:38. | |
in Guantanamo, which is shocking and outrageous, when | :20:39. | :20:40. | |
they are trying to, So, yes, there was this | :20:41. | :20:42. | |
feeling that they were... They were being accused, | :20:43. | :20:45. | |
that they were suspects. If they help people in areas | :20:46. | :20:48. | |
controlled by groups they might get themselves | :20:49. | :20:53. | |
into difficulty. "We are doing it anyway," | :20:54. | :20:56. | |
but some sort of resentment And I think it is both inefficient | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
and it's not the way to make friends It wasn't just because they | :21:02. | :21:07. | |
were a Muslim charity, or indeed based | :21:08. | :21:10. | |
in Birmingham, that they became a big partner | :21:11. | :21:11. | |
when I was working It was because they were willing | :21:12. | :21:18. | |
to work with quality in really difficult areas like the Kashmir | :21:19. | :21:23. | |
border with Azad Kashmir, for example, where there | :21:24. | :21:25. | |
are refugees and it is And I should say, because, | :21:26. | :21:27. | |
after 9/11, anything with Islam or Muslim in its title gets sniffed | :21:28. | :21:34. | |
at, I did ask our security services Oh, right, yeah. | :21:35. | :21:40. | |
So, I mean, that isn't there. At the end, the chairman | :21:41. | :21:46. | |
of the International Development Committee, Stephen Twigg, said | :21:47. | :21:48. | |
he would take the issue forward. Taxpayers are running out | :21:49. | :21:52. | |
of patience with large companies minimising their tax bills, | :21:53. | :21:54. | |
a Labour peer has told the Lords. The Government was being asked | :21:55. | :21:59. | |
about confidentiality in the tax Several household names were held up | :22:00. | :22:01. | |
as examples of organisations but ministers were mindful that, | :22:02. | :22:07. | |
in budget week, everyone's looking for a hint of | :22:08. | :22:11. | |
what policies are to come. Taxpayers have confidence | :22:12. | :22:15. | |
that the sensitive information they give the HMRC will be | :22:16. | :22:18. | |
protected, and this trust underpins the high | :22:19. | :22:21. | |
levels of voluntary tax compliance So, the public benefit of taxpayer | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
confidentiality lies in the overall effectiveness of the tax | :22:26. | :22:32. | |
administration that I can't for the life of me | :22:33. | :22:35. | |
understand the Minister's answer, Surely we have to seek the right | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
balance between confidentiality and surely transparency in our tax | :22:42. | :22:48. | |
returns would add to the integrity of the tax system | :22:49. | :22:56. | |
and ensure that the HMRC had I suspect that most members of this | :22:57. | :22:59. | |
house pay more in income tax There is a debate to be had | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
about greater transparency, whether on part of HMRC or on part | :23:05. | :23:10. | |
of large businesses, and the Government signalled this | :23:11. | :23:13. | |
by proposing recently to take forward a system of country | :23:14. | :23:19. | |
by country reporting for large but, within that, | :23:20. | :23:21. | |
we think that confidentiality... There are good reasons | :23:22. | :23:28. | |
for having confidentiality, It promotes voluntary compliance | :23:29. | :23:31. | |
and it encourages businesses to be more open and share | :23:32. | :23:41. | |
proprietary information Public patience with large | :23:42. | :23:43. | |
companies, and particularly multinationals, getting away | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
with paying minuscule amounts of tax in relation to the turnovers that | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
they have in the United Kingdom, Surely it does mean | :23:53. | :23:57. | |
that the Government should be addressing why it is that HMRC | :23:58. | :24:02. | |
were unable to get more than ?130 million out | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
of Google over a decade when, in fact, Google had turnovers | :24:07. | :24:12. | |
of over ?4 billion in any one year. And, as we know, my Lords, | :24:13. | :24:17. | |
Google is not the only case. Starbucks and, of course, Amazon, | :24:18. | :24:21. | |
were brought to book by public response because the public set | :24:22. | :24:25. | |
about boycotting their businesses Surely the Government must recognise | :24:26. | :24:30. | |
that to just hide behind the doctrine of confidentiality | :24:31. | :24:35. | |
will not do, and the tax authorities have got to be much more efficient | :24:36. | :24:39. | |
than they have been in the past. I do not think it is true | :24:40. | :24:43. | |
that they are hiding The doctrine of confidentiality | :24:44. | :24:47. | |
that you mentioned was passed by the Labour Government | :24:48. | :24:51. | |
under the act in 2005. And, as for Google, which is not | :24:52. | :24:55. | |
the subject of this question, as the noble lord should know, | :24:56. | :24:58. | |
if he doesn't know, the tax that Google paid was based on taxable | :24:59. | :25:03. | |
profits, not on turnover. Wouldn't the Minister agree that | :25:04. | :25:09. | |
a company's tax should not be determined by the attitude | :25:10. | :25:12. | |
of its PR department or even The HMRC needs to put | :25:13. | :25:16. | |
in place tough standards, so will this Government review | :25:17. | :25:22. | |
the structure of business taxes so that global businesses cannot use | :25:23. | :25:26. | |
tax manipulation as a way to out-compete domestic businesses | :25:27. | :25:31. | |
and small businesses My Lords, the budget | :25:32. | :25:35. | |
is on Wednesday. I am not going to talk | :25:36. | :25:38. | |
about tax policy. Keith Macdougall's here | :25:39. | :25:41. | |
for the rest of the week | :25:42. | :25:46. |