13/03/2018 Tuesday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to the programme.

Coming up...

Delivering his Spring

Statement, the Chancellor

characterises his mood.

I meanwhile am at my most positively

Tigger - like today.

But his Labour shadow is not amused.

His complacency today is astounding.

And YouTube gets a dressing down.

It is shocking that you seem to know

so little about who they are, what

training they've had or if they are

employed by your organisation.

It used to be that cometh

the spring, cometh the Budget.

The full holding up the briefcase

outside Number 11, how much a bottle

of whisky was going up and a rabbit

out of the fiscal hat.

But that was in the old

days, well, last year.

It all changed when the Chancellor

announced budgets were now

to be autumnal affairs,

with just a limited

statement in the spring.

So it was that Philip Hammond rose

in the Commons with what he said

would be a short statement.

In fact, it was 36 minutes.

He began with an attack on Labour.

I reject the party opposite cosmic

doom and gloom about the state of

the nation. -- party opposite's doom

and gloom. Every year since 2010,

we've had to listen to the right

honourable member for Hayes and

Harlington predict a recession, none

of which has actually happened. If

there are any yours in the chamber,

they're over there. -- Eeyores. I

meanwhile I met my most positively

Tigger-like today as I come amid the

country which bases the future with

unique strengths. Since autumn, I

have committed to £60 billion of --

£16 billion of new spending shared

between... With almost £9 billion

extra per hour NHS and our social

care system. £4 billion going into

the NHS in 2018 - 2019 alone. If

management and unions reach

agreement on pay modernisation deal

for our nation's nurses... Who have

worked in very challenging

circumstances to provide NHS care

that we all value so highly. £2.2

billion... Taking public investment

in our schools, hospitals and

infrastructure in this Parliament to

its highest sustained level in 40

years.

The Shadow Chancellor

was positively not Tigger-like.

His complacency today is astounding.

We face in every public service a

crisis on a scale we've never seen

before. Hasn't she listened to the

doctors, nurses, the teachers, the

police the carriers, and even his

own counsellors? -- the carers. They

are telling him to act now. For

eight years they've been ignored by

this government than today, they've

been in Godard again. NHS trusts

will end this financial year £1

billion in deficit. Doctors and

nurses are struggling, being asked

to do more and more while there is

100,000 NHS posts going on Bill. --

on fill. How many people have to die

waiting in an ambulance before he

acts? He's mentioned the payoff is

of the NHS staff, and I was forced

upon him by the Labour...

The SNP leader at Westminster

labelled the statement

much ado about nothing.

We are ten years on from the

financial crisis, the austerity is

still with us. There was a lack of

hope given to the people of the

United Kingdom from this statement

today. Mr Speaker, on the weekend we

saw the honourable member and his

other job as a linesman at the

Glasgow Celtic versus Rangers

football match, waving his flag

enthusiast thing... If anybody

deserves a red card today, it's the

Chancellor.

Several Labour MPs lined up

to criticise the Chancellor,

firstly on the NHS.

Given that he knows that the budget

is going to be two late -- too late

to... That he knows that the

doubling up all the Prime Minister

and do a public apology to the staff

and pigeons of the NHS who will have

to endure Mr's crisis because of

this failure.

The Chancellor has

been very upbeat today, but why is

he so upbeat when the growth figures

show that we have gone from near the

top of the G-7 and the G20 growth

lists to the bottom of both?

STUDIO: A Conservative MP quoted

from the economic forecast prepared

by the Office for Budget

Responsibility.

The likelihood of unexpected

political development leads to

significant downside risks to

forecasts. Nasa PCs any of those

political downside risks sitting

directly in front of him? -- can I

ask the Chancellor if the...

There

is the risk...

STUDIO: While Philip Hammond

was delivering his statement,

news came through that the US

Secretary of State had been

fired by President Trump.

Rex Tillerson had only on Monday

backed British authorities

in blaming the Kremlin

for the poisoning of a former

Russian spy in Salisbury.

This seemed to be a departure

from the White House line which had

declined to blame Russia.

A note was passed to the Prime

Minister as she was listening

to the Chancellor,

as you can see on the

right of the picture.

Perhaps the moment she got

news of the sacking?

After reading the note,

she acknowledges it and then begins

to digest its contents.

Now, Labour has failed

in a bid to block changes

to Universal Credit,

free school meals and childcare.

It accused the Government of trying

to deny free school meals

to a million children.

Ministers hit back saying

that was "scaremongering

and misinformation."

But there was a concession

to the DUP, with the Government

announcing that plans to end

the childcare voucher scheme

would be put off for six months.

The attack on the changes

to the welfare system were led

by the Shadow Education Secretary.

Many people, including MPs, wrongly

believed that all children in

poverty already get free school

meals. That is not currently the

case. Under the transitional

protection under Universal Credit,

they would be entitled to that

benefit and it's through this

secondary legislation that they're

pulling the rope from under the

flash point the rug from underneath

those families.

No child would lose

out their entitlement and that in

fact 50,000 more children would

benefit under our proposals when

compared to the previous system.

While I understand that is the

nature of the opposition to oppose,

scaremongering and misinformation

from that side of the House have

surely reached a new low.

Repeated

ad nausea... That isn't much good

for people. It is just being a shift

from out of her poverty into in work

poverty, we note there has been a

rise in and work poverty and that

six to 7% of children, 67% of

children who are currently living in

poverty do so in a family where at

least one person works.

Might I

suggest that seeing as the

Government does like to make Liberal

Democrat policy, with the income tax

threshold, I'm not precious, you can

have another one, extend free school

meals to all children in primary

schools. And if not that, then at

least extend it to all children

under Universal Credit.

The party

opposite frequently looked to us to

improve the situation and the lives

of the most vulnerable. That's what

this policy is doing. That's with

these regulations are doing today.

But unfortunately, the party

opposite seem not to live seem not

to lot get facts in the way -- get

in the way of a good story. They're

putting that before people.

We are

talking about young mums who are

probably reentering the labour

market for the first time. We are

this incentivizing them from

working. The problem with the policy

here is that it's breaking that

principle of the Universal

Credit,...

This motion is not about

-- this motion is about playing

politics. Government have taken the

time to understand how best to

transfer a lump sum benefits like

free school meals into a system like

Universal Credit. By the way,

taxpayers...

At the end of the debate

their was a concession

on the childcare voucher scheme.

Given the concerns raised across

this House, that there should be a

delay on the closure of that scheme

to allow for the concerts to be

addressed.

Madam Deputy Speaker I

have heard the concerns that have

been raised about this and the

timing and they can confirm that we

will be able to keep the voucher

scheme open for a further six

months...

STUDIO: Later, all four of Labour's

motions were rejected by MPs.

You're watching Tuesday

in Parliament with me, Mandy Baker.

The Conservative MP who represents

Telford has told ministers that

girls are being traded for sex

in "a routine way."

It's been reported that hundreds

of children could've fallen victim

to abusers over a 40-year period

in the Shropshire town.

These young girls are too often

white working-class, with multiple

from her abilities and that is what

perpetrators are targeting, that is

why perpetrators are targeting them.

It is also why so often they are

miscast as bringing it on

themselves. They are miscast as

being indulging in risky behaviour,

as being promiscuous. As somehow

being to blame for what is happening

to them. Had those girls been from a

different background, had they been

able to articulate more clearly what

it was that was happening to them,

have deep been able to identify that

it was a crime, -- had they been

able to do...

Lucy Allan called for

an independent inquiry.

The minister said this

was the worst of all crimes.

The scale of it is now being

encountered by the independent

inquiry of child sex abuse and I

think the Government recognises that

the inquiry will take a long time.

And I think where there are

incidents where we can intervene

earlier to try and prevent sexual

exploitation, I think we should.

A senior official at YouTube has

apologised to MPs for the company's

slowness in removing extremist

and offensive videos,

in particular those produced

by neo-Nazi groups such as National

Action.

William McCants faced

a barrage of questions

from the Home Affairs committee.

I want to say to begin, we apologise

for those videos being on our

platform. They should not have been

there. You should not have had to

come back to us repeatedly. These

four videos, because they are from a

proscribed terrorist organisation

should not have remained up on our

platform.

Do you have any reviewers

based in the United Kingdom?

I

believe we have a large team of

reviewers based in Ireland.

Which is

not in the UK.

Right, but I'm not

sure. We have of course full-time

employees that work on this, but if

you are asking me about contractors

that we use, I'm not sure if they

are based in the UK were not.

So you

put some of these decisions out to

contract?

Sertraline, and that's

part of the trouble here, that these

videos were going to people --

certainly, and we're not able to

identify them, that's why they will

be routed to specialist and why the

general reviewers will be given

training in order to identify the

city of.

How many of the people who

make these decisions are actually

not YouTube employees?

Generally I

don't know a number.

Do you do the

training for these contractors or

was that contracted out as well?

I

do not know who conduct the

training. I certainly know our trust

and safety teams are intimately

involved in designing the

curriculum.

This is new information

for us and I have to say it is

shocking, really shocking and you

don't even know where your review

teams are based, who they are,

whether they are done through

contract to other companies or

organizations or whether it is done

by YouTube. All of the statements

that you gave us at the beginning of

this evidence session about how much

it mattered to you personally, if

these things are actually being

implemented by staff on your behalf

or by people on your behalf, it is

frankly shocking that you seem to

know so little about who they are,

where they are, what training they

have had or even whether they are

employed by your organisation. You

have no response to that?

I've been

brought on to deal with

counterterrorism policy. I worked on

it at a very high level. Our trust

and safety teams are charged with

making sure that reviewers get the

training that they need.

Is that

from now on you'll be looking at it

like a hawk and take personal

responsibility for this. There is no

space for that. Is that then mean

that if you are back here in six

months' time this material is still

there that you will personally take

responsibility step down because you

are not performing as performing?

I

will take responsibility for

ensuring that this content does not

remain online. If it somehow gets

passed our failsafes, I am not doing

my job to make sure we are doing the

right thing to remove this content.

When we had evidence from YouTube in

the past you were very clear when

there is copyrighted material such

as songs, albums, the minute they

appear he removed them within

minutes and yet you have got

nothing, you have not invested

anything to match that kind of

copyright material and yet this

stuff is dangerous. It leads to

people losing their lives. It is

illegal. It is a cancer in society,

terrorism, and yet you are not

putting the effort into it and

frankly I feel insulted that YouTube

sent you to answer the questions.

This is not about your competence in

your field, but actually as an

organisation as big as YouTube

sending someone who does not know

the basic answers to the questions

and yet you have had nearly a week's

noticed to be answering this.

I

share your description of terrorism

as a cancer. That is why YouTube is

dedicated to removing that content

from its platform and we are putting

in place fixes every day, spending

millions of dollars to address this

problem. Our technology is getting

faster and we are expanding the

number of personnel who work on this

issue and we continue to make

improvements. Are we perfect? No.

Will we be perfect? No, but we are

getting better and better.

This is

not about perfection. You being the

wrong person before this committee

and not having a clue what you are

talking about. That is what I feel

has just happened in this evidence

session.

The blunt conclusion of Naz Shah.

Britain's first female

Muslim Cabinet minister has said

she won't be intimidated by letters

inciting violence against Muslims.

On Monday, MPs condemned the letters

encouraging people to take part

in a "Punish a Muslim" day.

I received a message my lords from a

friend, long message at the end of

it which she said I urge you please

do not go out on the 3rd of April.

It is punished for today. My lords,

I will along with many other Muslims

be going out on the 3rd of April

because we will not be intimidated

in this way.

The Government condemns

the content of the letters, as I

said in my original statement, as a

boring and misplaced in recent

society. I know the prime Minister

who as home Secretary to the number

of initiatives in partnership with

my noble friend will want to reflect

on the exchanges yesterday in the

Other Place, the exchange of today,

to see whether we can build on some

of the initiatives my noble friend

has referred to and see whether

there is further action we can take

in order to counter hate crime in

this country today.

Lord Young.

From next year some British

institutions will no longer be able

to return works of art looted

by the Nazis to their

rightful owners.

A Conservative MP

wants to change that.

Throughout the 1930s and 40s,

property of all kinds was

systematically stolen from millions

of people as part of Hitler's

horrific genocidal campaign against

Europe's Jewish community. That

included many precious works of art.

Legislation enacted in 2009 allowed

some institutions to ignore

statutory restrictions which prevent

them from giving away items

in their collections -

but that permission expires

in November next year.

Nothing can make up for the trauma

and suffering of those who

experienced the Holocaust at first

hand, or lost loved ones in that

horror, but at least we can give

them back to precious works of art

which were stolen from them. That is

what my proposal is designed to

achieve.

Theresa Villiers added

that her proposed Bill

was supported by the Government.

Fears about a trade war

with the United States and the take

over battle for engineering giant

GKN were among the questions put

to Business Department ministers.

GKN employs 6,000 people

in the UK mostly in aerospace

and automotive technology.

It became a takeover target

after it issued profit

warnings late last year.

Some MPs have been calling

for a recent bid to be blocked.

G8 -- GKN was forged in our

country's first Industrial

Revolution, build the tanks used in

the D-Day landings and its

innovative battery technology will

power our future economy. The

Government industrial strategy

identifies potteries as a vast

batteries as a key technology and

manufacturing as a priority sector.

Yet the Secretary of State has

nothing to say about the hostile

takeover of this great firm. So will

he answer this question. Why is it

that as with arm and Unilever, all

too often the Secretary of State's

industrial strategy seems to leave

great British success stories less

great were less British?

Will the

honourable Lee I would have thought

informed her so as to the

responsibility of Ministers --

honourable Lady, Ministers under the

enterprise act. The enterprise act

2000 to pass under the previous

labour government, which requires

that Ministers can only intervene in

mergers that raise public interest

concerns on the grounds of national

security, financial stability and

media plurality. But she should know

that the Government reforms of

corporate governments have made sure

that GKN had longer to prepare their

defence, preventing the kind of

smash and grab raid that Taber --

Cadbury is what subject to under the

previous government. And permission

has been made for legally binding

undertakings to be given in takeover

bids.

Labour was worried about the impact

of the recent announcement by the US

of import tariffs on

steel and aluminium.

The president has revealed an

appetite for a trade war which began

with the announcement of steel

tariffs and now includes cuts to put

them on EU cars which could hit our

industry hard. Will the Secretary of

State tell this House when he is

doing to avoid a trade war with the

US? And should act in such tariffs

come into play what he will do to

protect our steel and automotive

sector.

It does no one any good if

we have tariffs in place that impede

trade and I would have thought that

her endorsement of the approach that

the Trade Secretary has taken would

be welcome.

And a Conservative had a question

on the issue of US tariffs too.

Can my right honourable friend

reissue of the House of the effort

he is making to secure exemption for

UK produced steel and aluminium

products from next week's imposition

of terrorist.

I can assure the right

honourable friend I was in Brussels

yesterday meeting with the other

European Union Ministers and trade

union leaders and the representative

employees to make sure that we do

exactly what he says.

Richard Harrington.

Ministers were accused

of being complacent about the impact

What should britain's response be

to the salisbury nerve agent attack?

That was a questions posed

during a Westminster Hall debate

on the diplomatic service

and its resources.

The suggestions put forward by one

of the experts to respond to

Russia's action was to withdraw from

the World Cup in Russia. Instead

have the World Cup in England. That

would be an impressive way of

putting pressure on Russia to bring

about change. It's a diplomatic way

perhaps but maybe an undiplomatic

way of doing it but important way of

doing it.

I don't think it's a

serious, nearly serious enough for

the kind of step I believe this

government will need to take against

Russia. I think to say you will not

send a lot of dignitaries to the

World Cup is nowhere near good

enough and it's a pathetic response.

We will need to do much better and

much tougher than that. So that they

understand across the full spectrum

that this is the kind of behaviour

of which we will not put up with.

The Shadow foreign office minister

argued there had been a reduction

in the department's budget.

The smallest cut one can glean from

looking at the numbers is about 60%,

which is nonetheless extremely

large. And it does seem to me that

it is difficult for the Government

to project this global Britain role

while at the same time reducing

resources in the foreign office.

The minister said the government

was committed to making sure

the diplomatic service received

the resources that it needed.

Now finally just to return

to the Spring Statement.

And the Chancellor is always looking

for new ways to increase revenue.

The longest-serving MP -

the Father of the House -

is Ken Clarke, a former

Conservative Chancellor

himself of course.

He had an idea.

Can I suggest that he looks at some

of the extraordinary tax anomalies

he's inherited in the tax treatment

of older, prosperous people in

full-time work in this country. It

cannot be right...

LAUGHTER

I think I'm perfectly well placed.

Philip Hammond said he would be

looking at all options

before the next budget.

In the meantime, Mr Speaker, I can

tell my right honourable friend that

there is a mechanism for voluntary

donations to her Majesty's treasury

and in case it is misled I will send

a copy of our bank details.

One Conservative later made

the point that perhaps imposing

a new tax targeted at a core element

of the party's support may not be

a good idea after all.

And that's it.

So for now from me,

Mandy Baker goodbye.