I very much agree with my noble friend on every word that he said. The spending review that we saw this afternoon from the Chancellor set out capital spending that increases growth by 1.4% in the long term. Every single penny of that capital spending has been opposed by the party opposite. The spend…
My Lords, I declare an interest as co-chair of the all-party group on older persons. Is the Minister aware that Age UK, which really understands this issue and campaigned on it, welcomes unreservedly the Government’s decision—unlike the Conservatives, who say that they welcome the decision but would…
I would be very delicate about suggesting such a thing, but one of the things that we do really well within this nation is that, whichever side of the House we are sitting on, we all want to see the opportunity to trade and understand the value that it contributes to the UK economy. I think we can a…
Unfortunately not. I am very grateful to my noble friend for his question. He may be aware that very shortly—which I do not wish to pre-empt—a Statement will be made in the House of Commons by the Security Minister, which I suspect I will be repeating in due course in this House. I hope that he will…
It is incredibly important that the decisions we take make the tax system fairer and more sustainable, and I believe that is absolutely what we are doing. Despite a very tough fiscal context, we are maintaining considerably more generous reliefs in this sector than exist anywhere else in the tax sys…
My noble friend makes a really good point, but this scheme is not a compensation scheme; it is a scheme to recognise the hurt that was caused to people in the period from 1967 to 2000. Notwithstanding that, it is an important point that needs to be made. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, we …