Lords
Oral Questions
23 July 2025
Jobs Market
Of course my noble friend is utterly right. [ Laughter . ] Noble Lords opposite laugh, but this is no joking matter. One year in, and we are still uncovering the damage they did to our economy. We are making progress, and we will continue to do so. I repeat: employment and real earnings are up, econ…
Lords
Oral Questions
21 July 2025
Weight Loss Medication
My noble friend is right that there is a lot of attention on the food industry, and that is why so many programmes are now being targeted against advertising to children, et cetera. We will continue to work to make sure that that industry takes due regard of the impact of its products, and to do eve…
Lords
Oral Questions
21 July 2025
Official Development Assistance
That is an incredibly important area to focus on. We have spent £60 million this year on the UNFPA and an additional £8 million on humanitarian family planning products because, as my noble friend says, this is such a vital issue. It can make such a difference to women and girls and to whole communi…
Lords
Oral Questions
15 July 2025
Taxes
I completely agree with my noble friend on that point. Every time we hear from the party opposite, it opposes every single measure we have taken to stabilise the public finances, yet at no point has it opposed the spending that that has gone to fund. That is exactly the mistake Liz Truss made in her…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 July 2025
Tax on Imports under £135
It is not quite 14 years, I think; these rules came in in 2021. The previous Government prioritised trade facilitation in the aftermath of Brexit and, since 2021, VAT on imports below £135 is collected at the point of sale to prevent congestion at the border. However, this has opened up some opportu…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 July 2025
Tax Increases
My noble friend is absolutely right to point out the mess that we inherited and why so many difficult decisions had to be taken. He is right to point to the mess they left us in the welfare system; I think we had the highest proportion of people not working and were the only country in the G7 where …
Lords
Oral Questions
10 July 2025
Falkland Islands: Fisheries Exports Tariffs
My Lords, I live in Stoke-on-Trent, and I campaigned for remain in a 72% leave constituency. There are some elections I was definitely never destined to win. My noble friend will be aware that this Government are committed to making Brexit work. There is no point in looking back at this point; now w…
Lords
Proceedings
8 July 2025
Government Performance against Fiscal Rules
My Lords, will the Minister rule out following the example of the Truss Government, who crashed the economy? Has he received an apology for being left such a sad state of affairs in the economy that we have inherited?
Lords
Oral Questions
8 July 2025
ARIA: Scoping Our Planet Programme
I have not looked at that specific point, but I accept that that is indeed a possibility. The Freedom of Information Act has an enormous number of important roles, but it can be overwhelming. That is another reason why a very small organisation such as ARIA, which is focused on getting its work out …
Lords
Oral Questions
7 July 2025
Unpaid Tax
I do not think the honours system is for me to comment on. The noble Lord will be pleased to know that we are taking the action I have already described, and we also intend to take further action to close the tax gap. At the Spring Statement, we published consultations on a wide range of issues, inc…
Lords
Oral Questions
3 July 2025
UK–EU Defence and Security Co-operation
My noble friend highlights the importance for us of developing a relationship with Europe. Where it is appropriate and where it is complementary to NATO, having a defence and security partnership with Europe, as outlined in the document, is in our interest, Europe’s interest and, ultimately, the int…
Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2025
Peers’ Entrance Security Door
My Lords, again I have to preface this with what the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said. I am not directly responsible for all this. My understanding is that the cost originally was £6.1 million. There were changes because of planned patterns of work and technical issues. One of the particular problems…
Lords
Oral Questions
25 June 2025
Independent Schools: Tax Changes
My Lords, this Government worry about people in all schools. My noble friend is right that as a Government we have a job to put right some of the underinvestment of the last Conservative Government and to deliver our pledge to ensure that there are 6,500 new specialist teachers in secondary and spec…
Lords
Oral Questions
24 June 2025
Baby Foods: Nutrition and Marketing
I have answered the point before. Our focus is on improving the situation; however, we kid ourselves if we think that it will be solved just by forms of regulation. This is a much bigger issue: it is about changing culture. It is about making sure that we take young women—and dads—forward on this jo…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 June 2025
Business Rates Reform
That is a very interesting proposal from my noble friend. As I say, we will set out an interim report later this summer, setting out a clear direction of travel, and let us see whether those ideas are included.
Lords
Oral Questions
23 June 2025
2 contributions
Live Music Industry: Support
My Lords, I declare my interest as a governor of an independent school—and give way to the noble Lord.
I thank my noble friend for allowing me again to draw attention to the fact that the department has today published its Creative Industries Sector Plan . That identifies the music industry and other parts of the cultural sector as a high-growth subsector and sets out the actions from the Government …
Lords
Oral Questions
17 June 2025
Learning Disabilities Nursing
I agree. We have many excellent staff from countries around the globe who are very committed, professional and hard-working. I presume my noble friend is referring to changes in international recruitment. I can assure him that that is why, certainly in respect of care staff, there is a transition pe…
Lords
Oral Questions
16 June 2025
2 contributions
Social Energy Tariff
My Lords, the Government know that more needs to be done to support vulnerable households that are struggling with bills while we transition to clean power. Earlier this year, we published a consultation on the expansion of the warm home discount, giving more eligible households £150 off their energ…
The consultation has just ended, and we expect to make an announcement in due course. The question is about a social tariff, but if you look at organisations such as National Energy Action, you will see that there is no one definition of a social tariff. We are doing everything we can in the circums…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 June 2025
Economic Growth
I completely agree with my noble friend.
Lords
Oral Questions
11 June 2025
Online Abuse: Protection for Children
In this case, Ofcom can do only what legislators ask it to do or provide for it to do. It is limited in that. As noble Lords will know, Ofcom has a clear remit to implement the Online Safety Act. I know that we have discussed this several times before, but I think that as we roll out the illegal cod…
Lords
Proceedings
10 June 2025
2 contributions
Winter Fuel Payment
My Lords, the Opposition suggested that the Government have put pensioners behind the NHS and teachers. Does the Minister agree that the Tories do not seem to want to tell teachers or NHS staff that they want them to be poorer?
That is what they are doing.
Lords
Oral Questions
10 June 2025
Corporate Liquidations
I thank the noble Lord for that question. All I can say is that in my long years of business I have learned one thing. Turnover is vanity; profit is sanity. If companies keep chasing turnover without the support of working capital, they will be on the first and pretty fast step to failure.
Lords
Oral Questions
4 June 2025
Denial of Banking Services: UK Defence Sector
No, I disagree with my noble friend on that point. As I said before, the ESG market has developed quickly and without formal oversight, so it is the responsibility of government to make sure that that sector is brought under the scope of regulation. As I have said, we will lay secondary legislation …
Lords
Oral Questions
3 June 2025
Farmers: Competitiveness
My noble friend raises some interesting questions. It is clearly important that we target our resources and funding on those who are most in need. That is one of the reasons why the delinked payments are reduced the most for those who have the most and the least for those who need more time to make …