Robert Jenrick
MP for Newark · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“Robert Steele was a beautiful four-year-old boy who died three weeks ago in Newark when he was thrown from an off-road bike that was being driven by a 24-year-old man. This is the culmination of a number of incidents in my town, and many others across the country, involving off-road bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.”
“The Minister said that Governments are elected to lead. Most people would assume that means that Ministers are elected to lead, because they are accountable to Parliament and to the people.”
“There is an air of total unreality hanging over this debate. Successive Governments have run down our Royal Navy to its present enfeebled state, they have conspired to surrender other British sovereign territory and we have a Government who procrastinate about signing off a new oil field in the North sea—let alone about one in the south A…”
“I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his position. I have known him for a long time—I wish him well. He has a huge task ahead of him. Earlier in the summer, the Prime Minister said that walking the streets of Makerfield lodged in his mind that so many working people want to see the personal allowance raised.”
“Imagine that you are a worker at JLR worried about your future, and you have the misfortune of watching the Chancellor’s speech, which contains searing economic insights like, “I want to see businesses make a profit.” There was nothing about scrapping electric vehicle mandates, bringing down energy costs by getting rid of net zero targets…”
“The sight of the Government escorting illegal migrants into Portsmouth harbour, the home of the Royal Navy, was a national humiliation. Sometimes I wonder whether Members of this House have no appreciation of the level of anger there is in the country at the rapes, the murders and the billions being wasted that should be being spent on th…”
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“The people of the north-east of England voted to leave the European Union; I know that the hon. Lady takes a different view, but we are trying to deliver on the outcome of the referendum. Had she voted for the withdrawal Bill, these matters would, of course, be progressing. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already said, we are guaranteeing funding to the beneficiaries of all EU structural funds to 2023, so there is a degree of certainty as we move forwards. But the sooner that this House can coalesce on a good deal and that we can leave the European Union in an orderly fashion, the sooner this matter can be cleared up.”
“As I have already said, we intend to consult later this year. I strongly encourage my hon. Friend’s constituents to take part in that consultation; he and I have already spoken about this. I have met representatives from Cornwall Council, for example, to talk about the issue and some of the projects that they care strongly about—including, of course, the stadium in Cornwall, of which my hon. Friend has been a strong proponent.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: there are disparities of income and productivity across the United Kingdom, and what he mentions will be one of the key objectives. But the shared prosperity fund is not our only intervention in this area: we are taking a range of measures, including significantly increasing the amount of public investment in infrastructure—to the highest levels in this country since the 1970s.”
“Clearly, it is not possible to progress this matter until we have greater certainty about our exit from the European Union. Those Members of this House who want to see this matter progressed should be voting to leave at every opportunity, as we on the Government side have done. The important thing to point out on regional disparities is that this Government are investing far more than the previous Labour Government. In fact, £430 million a week more in real terms is being invested by this Government than under the previous Labour Government on infrastructure in all parts of the UK.”
“The Government are supporting the northern powerhouse through devolution deals for, among others, Manchester, Liverpool, the West Midlands and, most recently, North of Tyne, as well as through over £13 billion of investment in better transport across the north. In addition, we have invested over £3 billion from the local growth fund in the region since 2015, and we committed at the Budget to announce a renewed northern powerhouse strategy later this year.”
“With respect to the hon. Lady, she is not correct on the numbers. This Government are investing more in the north than the previous Labour Government. Over the course of this Parliament, central Government investment in transport infrastructure will be higher in the north of England than it will be in London and the south-east on a per capita basis. We have seen a 40% increase in central Government funding per person in the north under this Government.”
“Over the course of this Parliament and the last, this Government will have invested £13 billion in transport for the north. With respect to Northern Powerhouse Rail, which was mentioned earlier, over the last two years we have given £97 million to Transport for the North to build the business case and prepare the ground for that project. In the course of the spending review—our zero-based review—we will be considering how to take forward that project.”
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and that is why we have given funding to Transport for the North to prepare a properly thought-through business case. We of course have decisions to make in the spending review about which of those projects should be taken forward and which provide good value for money. In the hon. Gentleman’s own city and city region of Sheffield, we have of course given money through the transforming cities fund to improve inter-city connectivity for his constituents.”
“We have received representations from the midlands engine, and from Midlands Connect in relation to transport, about both road and rail east-west connectivity. We are considering them carefully, and they will form part of the spending review.”
“We give many other funding streams to northern communities, including £3.3 billion through the local growth fund and £13 billion for wider transport schemes.”
“Perhaps unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am interested in any proposal that can drive economic growth in the north of England. Free ports are an interesting proposal, which we have discussed with a number of communities. We have urged them to come forward with well-thought-through business cases. We have yet to receive them from many places, but we have received one from Teesside and we will consider them carefully in future.”
“The Government’s decisions on tax, welfare and spending on public services have benefited households across income distribution, with the poorest gaining the most as a percentage of net income. That is supported by the distribution analysis published by the Treasury at the time of the most recent Budget.”
“The United Kingdom is not the most unequal society in Europe; it is not anything like that. The Government’s policies, such as our policies of investing in infrastructure and in boosting productivity, have been designed to level up the parts of the UK that need it the most. When it comes to poverty and living standards, things are improving. Real wages have been rising for 10 consecutive months, and more people are in work. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, unemployment has fallen by 60% since 2010.”
“Our priority has been getting young people into work. In 2010 we inherited a youth unemployment rate of 20%; we have almost halved that. The priority for this Government will be ensuring young people get a great education; more young people are in good or outstanding schools than when we came into power in 2010, and we want them to get apprenticeships and get into work and get on in life.”
“I therefore commend the order to the Committee.”
“Having a clear definition that captures the full range of heated tobacco will also mean that there is less scope for manufacturers to attempt to reduce their duty liability by producing products that do not clearly fall within an existing category. The statutory instrument therefore inserts a description of tobacco for heating into the 2003 order, which is necessary for the new duty category to take effect. This change is designed to maintain the effectiveness of our long-established tobacco regime. The Finance Act 2019 created a new duty category—tobacco for heating—with a commencement date of 1 July 2019. Failure to provide a legal description of tobacco for heating will mean that the new duty category cannot commence as announced. Subject to approval of this order, the new category and rate will be switched on from 1 July 2019.”
“They contain processed tobacco that is heated but not burned, as is the case in conventional tobacco products. There are different ways in which this can be achieved, but all use tobacco to produce or flavour vapour. While current categories capture tobacco designed for smoking—apart from chewing tobacco, which is clearly quite distinct—they do not specifically capture heated tobacco products. At present, there are only a very small number of heated tobacco products on the market, which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs assesses on a case-by-case basis to determine their liability to tobacco products duty. That will not be efficient in the long term if the market grows, particularly if the number of products increases substantially.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the Tobacco Products (Descriptions of Products) (Amendment) Order 2019 (S.I. 2019, No. 953). The statutory instrument inserts into the Tobacco Products (Descriptions of Products) Order 2003 a new article that describes tobacco for heating, ensuring that this category of tobacco product can be distinguished from existing duty categories. This technical change describes tobacco that can be heated without combustion to produce or flavour a vapour, and did not attract any controversy during consultation. I assure right hon. and hon. Members that the Department of Health and Social Care has been intimately involved in the development of this new description. Heated tobacco products, also known as heat not burn, are a recent development in the tobacco market.”
“We monitor that closely, and the Exchequer always has new and novel ways of raising money to meet the shortfall in the future, should it have to. In terms of snuff, I am looking to my officials— [ Interruption. ] That is disappointing. I was looking to my officials to see whether they knew the answer, but I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for supporting this measure. As I said, it is a simple measure, which puts on the statute book the definition that is required under the Finance Act 2019. The amount of revenue at stake is negligible—less than £5 million per year. That is partly because there is only one known product on the market at the moment. Of course, should this take off as a new form of smoking, there will more revenue at stake; at the moment, we think it will be only a small amount. Our primary motivation here is providing clarity to taxpayers, rather than raising significant amounts of money. On the future revenue stream from tobacco, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that, should smoking continue to decline, which is a good thing, the revenue stream will start to decline.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the comments and questions posed by the hon. Members for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Bootle (Peter Dowd). I shall not detain the House long, but I will try to respond to as many points as possible. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Bootle has raised those concerns and indicated that he intends to vote against this measure, given that he did not divide the House on Second Reading and did not divide the Committee on a single clause.”
“New clause 1 also asks specifically about distributional analysis, while new clause 2 asks the Government to consider the impact on businesses using termination payments to fund a start-up—a matter that we also discussed in Committee. First, the Government consider that producing such reports is unnecessary, because we have already considered these issues in detail as part of the policy development and extensive consultation process. As we have discussed on a number of occasions, this Bill has been known about for some time. It was published for the first time in 2015. It has been restated in Budgets. It has been consulted on. This is not a new measure; it is well known to individuals and stakeholders who might be affected and to the tax and professional community who will be involved in advising businesses.”
“Let me respond to the amendments tabled by the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North. It is a bit like groundhog day, because we have been through these arguments before. I will first address new clauses 1 and 2, which seek to amend the legislation that deals with termination awards, and then new clause 5. New clauses 1 and 2 seek to commit the Government to report to Parliament on the impact of the changes to termination awards legislation within one year of implementation. They both seek further information on the impact of this measure on individuals whose contracts have ended and on employers.”
“We do intend to do that, and we do so within three to five years of Royal Assent to a Bill. As I explained in Committee, the conclusions on the Bill will be communicated publicly to the Treasury Committee. I understand the point she has made on a number of occasions that we could at that point specifically notify certain Members of this House should they be in this House and remain interested. However, again with respect, I suggest it is perfectly reasonable that we send that to the Treasury Committee, which will publish it. It will be in the public domain, and if she or other right hon. and hon. Members are interested at that stage, they will be able to view it and take it from the Treasury Committee website.”
“As I said in answer to the hon. Lady in Committee, that is not information that HMRC collects. Studies are made by independent bodies, some of which I highlighted to her during the previous stage of the Bill. I could direct her to them, but I cannot vouch for the veracity of those studies, which are produced by independent bodies. Of course, there is anecdotal evidence of the number of start-ups created in the event of significant redundancies at particular businesses, but that is not something HMRC collects or would be able to do easily. With great respect to the hon. Lady and the point she is trying to make, I do not agree that that is something we should attempt to do in this case. The point the hon. Lady raised in her closing remarks was about the review that HM Treasury does in the ordinary course of business.”
“It requires tracking the behaviour of an individual across time and between different employments.”
“As I have set out on a number of occasions, the Government have already assessed the distributional impacts of this policy using the information that is available to us. We are confident that the termination awards affected by these changes will be disproportionately paid by higher and additional rate taxpayers. It will not be possible to make a further assessment until we have collected the administrative data on the impact of this policy, which we will do in due course, and it will of course inform the review we have already described in three to five years’ time. New clause 2 asks that we consider the impact on start-ups. I have answered the question from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North: we do not hold this data. It is not an easy statistic to collect.”
“Were this or a future Government to do so, it would require an affirmative statutory instrument, which could then be debated and voted on by the House. We have also chosen not to change employee national insurance contributions as well, which we could have done for even greater simplification. We chose not to do so to protect employees in a difficult period in their working lives. At this point, I would add that this policy has been costed. That was certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, and the methodology for this assessment is described in the Budget policy costing document. The suggestion from the hon. Member for Bootle that this was not properly costed is not correct; it has been independently certified. New clause 1 also requests that the Government conduct a distributional analysis.”
“Accepting these new clauses at this stage would mean rushing into reviewing these polices prematurely, without proper consideration and without enough evidence to do so robustly, which is what I think all right hon. and hon. Members would wish us to do. Secondly, the Government have already explicitly considered the impact on employers and individuals as part of this policy development and the consultation process I have already outlined. We decided on an approach that protected those losing their jobs—for example, by retaining the important £30,000 exemption. We have stressed on a number of occasions throughout the passage of the Bill that the Government certainly have no intention of changing that.”
“I cannot tell the hon. Lady that at the present time, and for good reason. We do not know at this moment when will be an appropriate time to review this particular tax. Clearly, it can take time to gather the correct evidential base, and that will vary from tax to tax. We will choose the correct moment when we have the greatest degree of evidence to make an informed decision, but it will be within the three-to-five year window. The existing processes I have described allow time for the Government to consider an adequate amount of evidence, including administrative and taxpayer data. These do take time to collect. They often involve external research, stakeholder views and other relevant analysis. After one year, as is proposed in new clauses 1 and 2, is rarely the appropriate time to review a new tax.”
“The measures were first announced at Budget 2015, consulted on thereafter and so have been widely expected and subjected to a great deal of scrutiny. The effect of the changes in the Bill will mean that a 13.8% class 1A employer national insurance charge will be applied to income derived from termination awards and sporting testimonials that are already subject to income tax. I would like to reiterate my thanks to hon. Members who participated in the debates. I thank my superb officials at HM Treasury and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, whose patience and professionalism never ceases to impress me. I commend the Bill to the House.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I am grateful to all the right hon. and hon. Members who participated throughout the passage of the Bill, particularly in Committee. I thank the Committee’s Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) and the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). This is a small and narrowly drawn but none the less important Bill that continues the Government’s aim of aligning tax and national insurance contributions where it is right to do so. The Bill aligns the employer national insurance contribution treatment of termination awards and sporting testimonials with the current tax treatment. It also raises about £200 million a year for the public finances. As I mentioned in previous debates, the Bill has been expected for some time.”
“The Government’s response to the Treasury Committee’s report will be published in the coming weeks. We will seek to address in detail all the recommendations that my right hon. Friend and her Committee made and outline the steps that we will take to build on the progress made on access to financial services. I thank the hon. Members who took part in the debate, and I thank my right hon. Friend for another interesting and rigorous report with insightful recommendations, on which I hope we can work together.”
“We will give more thought to them and respond to her, I hope in the next few weeks. We all agree that access to useful and affordable financial products and services is essential to individuals, regardless of their background or income. Part of this is about ensuring that financial services are inclusive to all customers and protecting those who are financially vulnerable by making the right products and advice available. The banks are taking steps in that regard. I met the staff at my local bank in Newark last Friday and saw the quality of training that that bank, Lloyds, provides to protect vulnerable people, such as those who suffer from dementia and those at risk of scams, including new ones emerging as a result of the new digital economy. However, there is a great deal more that the sector and the Government can do.”
“We welcome the FCA’s work to improve our understanding of vulnerability in the context of financial services, including its forthcoming publication of guidance to firms on how to identify and treat vulnerable consumers. The breadth of the definition of vulnerability in the Committee’s report no doubt will influence and inform the FCA’s work in that regard. Through the Consumer Forum, the Government and regulators from across sectors are working to better understand vulnerable consumers. That will inform the actions taken by the Government and regulators in this space. My right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough asked particular questions about the duty of care. We will give that careful thought and respond in a couple of weeks’ time, as we will to her comments about the Equality Act. Those were very important questions.”
“That will give vulnerable consumers 60 days’ respite from creditor action, giving them time to access debt advice and put their finances on a sustainable footing. The Government will publish our response to the consultation very shortly, and we have committed to laying regulations before the end of this year to establish breathing space. The Committee’s report also made recommendations about how financial services can work better for vulnerable consumers. The Government have given the FCA strong powers to protect consumers, and we expect it to continue its work in this area. The FCA and other regulators no doubt will read with interest the comments and recommendations in the report; in turn, I will certainly pay careful attention to their responses.”
“Friend the Member for Loughborough will know from her work as Secretary of State for Education, as part of the curriculum for citizenship education for 11 to 16-year-olds. As reports from the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people have recognised, there is more to do to ensure that that education is delivered well in all parts of the country. We recognise that there is more we can do in that regard. Public funding for debt advice in England has risen to £55 million in 2019-20. That provides help with debt to more than 560,000 people, an increase of 85,000 compared with 2018-19. In addition, during autumn 2018, the Government held a consultation on a breathing space scheme in response to campaigning by a number of Members.”
“The new body provides money guidance for members of the public at every stage of their financial journey. The Government’s commitment to improve people’s financial capability and the provision of financial education is reflected in MAPS’s strategic function to develop and co-ordinate a national strategy that will build on and further progress the Money Advice Service’s work on financial capability. It is particularly important that children and young people receive good-quality financial education to help them to shape their financial habits later in life. That is why financial literacy was made statutory in the national curriculum in England in 2014, which my right hon.”
“We are alive to that issue and we are working on our digital strategy as a country to ensure that more people have access to basic digital training. Through education we are taking steps in that regard. We should recognise that some new products coming out of the FinTech sector will be very useful to those who have the digital skills to access them, whether that is income smoothing, budgeting skills or the ability to share payments and bills among flatmates. They will make life much easier, but that is dependent on having the digital skills to access those services. Financial guidance is not limited to digital skills. Last year, we established a new single financial guidance body, the Money and Pensions Service—MAPS—by merging three existing bodies, Pension Wise, the Pensions Advisory Service and the Money Advice Service.”
“There has been a negotiation that has led to a significant increase in the amount of money that banks pay of between two and three times the amount of money that post offices receive for offering those services. I am very alive to that issue and the need of those running post offices, often on low margins and taking very little money out of their business, to receive fair compensation for their work. The wider question of digital inclusion, which the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw raised, is very important. Although younger people and perhaps those in this debate enjoy using digital payments, people have to be able to use digital services and live in areas with 5G or broadband to access them. In rural areas, that is not always the case, although there have been great steps forward.”
“That is an important commitment, and we all need to hold LINK to account. I assure the Committee and colleagues here that I will play my role in doing that, as will my colleague, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Post offices play a key role. They provide a good range of banking services—not a complete range, but most of the services that individuals and smaller businesses will require. Although the number of post offices continues to decline, it is more stable than it has been for a long time. There are 11,500 branches across the country, and we will continue to do all we can to support them. My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark), who is no longer in the debate, raised the important question of fees for services that banks provide to those running post offices.”
“The last figures show that there was a 10% reduction in the use of ATMs in London, but the figure was as low as 2% in areas such as the east midlands, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and I represent, and in Northern Ireland. There are large variations by region, age and socio-economic group. We need to pay careful attention to that. The LINK organisation has made an important commitment to maintain a good and appropriate geographical representation of ATMs, and a particular commitment that we intend to hold it to: that if the last ATM in one kilometre closes and no alternative is provided by the local post office in that radius, it will continue to seek an alternative location for an ATM and will use the subsidies that it provides without limit until an alternative is found.”
“In 2017, the number of free ATMs in the country reached its peak at 54,500, many of which were clustered in the wrong places, particularly in urban areas with the highest footfall. Since then the number has declined. Even though there might be a logical case for reducing the number of ATMs in areas with high footfall, where they are in less demand as more of us use contactless and digital payments, we want to ensure that we protect the people who live in harder-to-serve areas. The number of ATM transactions is falling by around 6% year on year. Demand is reducing but it varies quite significantly in different parts of the country, as the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw suggested.”
“I was pleased to meet Natalie Ceeney recently to discuss the findings of her excellent Access to Cash review, which showed that creative industry initiatives are already being developed, including encouraging greater use of cashback. We think that the industry, perhaps with Government help, can do more to encourage a resurgence in cashback, which was prevalent but is somewhat less so today. It could be part of the answer where ATMs are in decline. There might be opportunities for smaller shops such as convenience stores to return to offering cashback if they have stopped doing so. We would like to take that forward in future. We have heard about ATMs, where there is undoubtedly a challenge. There remains a large network of free ATMs in this country—among the largest of any developed country in the world.”
“We have set up the joint authority cash strategy group, which responds directly to one of the report’s recommendations. It brings together the Bank of England, the Payment Systems Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority to provide comprehensive oversight of the UK’s cash infrastructure, from supply to customer access. That will complement the Bank of England’s work to reform the wholesale cash industry, to encourage innovation and guarantee resilience even in a much lower cash usage environment. The organisation has already started work, and I am happy to update the Committee and other interested Members in the month ahead as we develop this area of work. Industry has played a central role, and will have one in future, to maintain access to cash, because with industry innovation we can do more at a lower cost.”
“The Government recognise that the use of digital payment is growing very fast—among the fastest of any major economy: in Europe, only a few Nordic countries are moving to a more cashless society at a faster pace than our own. Although we acknowledge the many benefits for consumers and the economy, there is and will continue to be for many years to come—almost certainly throughout our lifetimes—a need for cash and traditional face-to-face methods of banking to continue alongside the new thriving digital economy. Running both the digital and the cash systems side by side in all parts of the country and for all consumers, including the most vulnerable, will be a considerable challenge to us as Government and policy makers in the years ahead, but one that we must meet.”
“A large number of people benefit from them. The last report that we received, published in December 2018, found that almost 7.5 million basic bank accounts were open at that time, deployed through the nine designated institutions. The banks that are required to provide basic bank accounts send reports to the Treasury, so we receive accurate information, but we could perhaps do more to monitor those banks’ activities and ensure that they are more visible to potential customers, particularly the most vulnerable. I will take away the hon. Lady’s comments in that regard. The report made a number of recommendations on safeguarding access to cash.”
“Depending on the results, we will then move quickly into the pilot design phase and then to implementation. The Government are also directing an initial £55 million of dormant assets funding towards financial inclusion, primarily to address affordable credit. That will be deployed by a new, independent organisation, Fair4All Finance, which was launched in February. We are pleased with the rapid progress that it is making, and excited to see it begin work with a range of partners to tackle financial exclusion, but clearly there is more to be done. We heard some comments about basic bank accounts. We think, as right hon. and hon. Members here do, that they play an important role. I will take away the comments from the hon. Member for Oxford East about access to and knowledge of those bank accounts.”
“Other measures include a change in the regulatory boundary of credit broking, to allow registered social landlords to refer their tenants to social and community lenders; a pilot prize-linked savings scheme to encourage the growth of the credit union sector and to encourage consumers to build up their personal savings, which we readily acknowledge are lower than most of us would like to see; and a feasibility study to design a pilot for a UK no-interest loans scheme, which we have already heard about. That scheme will be aimed at helping those at the margins of the financial system, for whom borrowing from social and community lenders can still be unaffordable. The Government have appointed London Economics, which is undertaking the study and will report back this summer.”
“A sub-group of the forum that was set up last summer to examine the issues of access to affordable credit made a number of recommendations. To build on that work, at last year’s Budget we announced a package of affordable credit measures aimed at supporting the affordable credit sector and offering more choice and a better deal to consumers who struggle to access mainstream credit. Some of those measures have already been referenced in this debate. They include a £2 million affordable credit challenge fund, harnessing the UK’s undoubtedly great capability in the FinTech sector to address the specific challenges faced by social and community lenders. The Government have appointed Nesta as the delivery partner to run the challenge fund, and we expect to launch it in the summer—so, in the coming weeks.”