Category: Economy

  • John Glen – 2020 Comments on the UK Fintech sector

    John Glen – 2020 Comments on the UK Fintech sector

    The text of the comments made by John Glen, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, on 20 July 2020.

    The UK is one of the leading places in the world to start and grow a fintech firm, and I am determined to ensure this continues. The sector is worth around £7 billion to our economy and will therefore be vital in ensuring both that the country bounces back post-Coronavirus, and continues to be at the forefront of financial innovation now we have left the EU.

    This independent review will help us to uphold and enhance our global reputation, support growing firms, and promote the integration of new technologies across financial services to the benefit of businesses and their customers.

  • Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer

    Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer

    Text of the letter sent by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, to Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 17 July 2020.

    We are writing to urge you to step up and show leadership at the forthcoming G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting this weekend.

    The world now faces a serious threat of international contagion from financial problems caused by the Covid-19 crisis. Unless a number of fragile economies are able to restructure their existing debt, there is a risk they will be unable to contain the spread of Covid-19 and a second global wave becomes more likely. Given their links to other emerging economies – and indeed to our own – without concerted global action the impact on our economy and our health may be severe.

    We are calling on you to show leadership on two critical issues.

    Firstly, we need clear action to ensure that private creditors cooperate with internationally-coordinated debt restructuring by governments. The global community has been slow on this and it is right and proper that the UK leads the way now given that much of the legal activity concerning debt agreements with poorer nations is located in the City of London. We urge you to act to ensure that private lenders restructure debts where needed, including through making this part of IMF loan programmes and passing legislation to make it easier for countries to suspend and restructure debts governed by English law.

    Secondly, we are calling on the UK government to co-ordinate global action to enable fragile economies to make use of ‘Special Drawing Rights’ to help them deal with liquidity pressures. Under the current arrangements, the countries that most need help now are the least likely to get it. We have raised this with you previously. At the beginning of May, the Chancellor assured us that he had ‘called on the IMF to keep a possible SDR allocation on the table’. This is insufficient. We need a global agreement that avoids the contagious effects of even more severe liquidity shocks for fragile economies, with all the knock-on impacts these would have. The UK must ensure this is on the agenda on Saturday and that an agreement is reached.

    The world was slow to come together to tackle this pandemic and has been slow to take co-ordinated global action to deal with the economic crisis that followed. People across the world, including here in the UK, will suffer as a result. During the 2008 financial crash, the UK led the global response to protect us from economic haemorrhaging and action was taken within days. We need comparable leadership now.

    The UK is uniquely placed within the international community to lead the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. To date, however, that leadership has been sorely lacking, to the detriment of both UK and international efforts to tackle the spread of the virus. This crisis has shown that we are only as strong as the most vulnerable. The UK must now play its part, or we will all continue to suffer the consequences.

  • Alok Sharma – 2020 Comments on Protecting Jobs

    Alok Sharma – 2020 Comments on Protecting Jobs

    Text of the comments made by Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, on 15 July 2020.

    The UK’s internal market has functioned seamlessly for centuries. When we exit the transition period at the end of the year, we want to ensure the most successful political and economic union of nations in the world continues to grow and thrive.

    This plan protects jobs and livelihoods. Without these necessary reforms, the way we trade goods and services between the home nations could be seriously impacted, harming the way we do business within our own borders.

    Ensuring businesses will be able to continue trading freely across all four corners of the UK without the burden of inconsistent regulation or additional costs will be essential as we fire up our economic engines as we recover from coronavirus.

  • Bridget Phillipson – 2020 Comments on Labour Market Statistics

    Bridget Phillipson – 2020 Comments on Labour Market Statistics

    The text of the comments made by Bridget Phillipson, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 16 July 2020.

    Every lost job is a personal tragedy now and a hammer blow to public finances in the long run.

    Last week the Chancellor should have targeted support to the sectors worst affected by this terrible crisis. Instead his blanket approach won’t deliver for those who need it most.

    The Government still has time to grasp the scale of the challenge and change course. It must act now before it’s too late.

  • Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Comments on ONS Statistics on Economic Growth

    Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Comments on ONS Statistics on Economic Growth

    The text of the comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 14 July 2020.

    While it is encouraging to see that the economy started to slowly grow back in May, these figures show the scale of the challenge ahead of us.

    Labour pushed the government to do more protect and create jobs. While we have concerns around the implementation of the Kickstart scheme, we are pleased to have seen some action in this area. But ministers must do much more to prevent people becoming unemployed in the first place, such as a flexible Job Retention Scheme for badly-hit sectors and areas affected by additional lockdowns.

    Above all, the government must focus on getting the Test, Track and Isolate system working properly, which is vital to help build consumer confidence.

  • Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Comments on OBR Analysis

    Anneliese Dodds – 2020 Comments on OBR Analysis

    The text of comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 14 July 2020.

    This OBR analysis is very worrying. Unless the Government takes urgent action, the UK’s unemployment crisis is going to get much worse.

    The Chancellor must now listen to calls from Labour, business and trade unions and make the Job Retention Scheme live up to its name. Instead of withdrawing support across the piece, he must target it to sectors where it’s needed most.

    If he doesn’t act, even more people run the risk of being thrown into the misery of unemployment and our economy will continue to suffer.

  • Kwasi Kwarteng – 2020 Statement on Energy Infrastructure Planning Projects

    Kwasi Kwarteng – 2020 Statement on Energy Infrastructure Planning Projects

    Below is the text of the statement made by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, in the House of Commons on 9 July 2020.

    This statement concerns an application made by Norfolk Boreas Ltd for development consent for the installation, operation and maintenance of the ​proposed Norfolk Boreas offshore wind farm, their related offshore infrastructure off the coast of Norfolk and their related onshore electrical connections within this county.

    Under section 98(1) of the Planning Act 2008, the examining authority must complete its examination of an application by the end of the period of six months beginning with the day after the start day of the examination unless the Secretary of State sets a new deadline under section 98(4) of that Act. Where a new deadline is set, the Secretary of State must make a statement to Parliament to announce it.

    A request has been made by the Planning Inspectorate to extend the examination period—for five months—for the proposed Norfolk Boreas offshore wind farm development. The reasons given for this request were:

    due to Government guidelines in relation to coronavirus (“covid-19”) several hearings needed to be cancelled, potentially resulting in interested parties not being given a fair opportunity to participate in the examination;

    a number of interested parties no longer had the capacity to participate in the examination process as a result of covid-19 resource prioritisation.

    Taking these reasons into account and, after careful consideration, the Secretary of State has decided to reset the statutory timescale for the examination as requested. This means that the examination period is now extended to 12 October 2020.

    As a consequence, the date for receipt of the examining authority’s report to BEIS is extended to 12 January 2021 and the statutory deadline for the Secretary of State’s decision is extended to 12 April 2021.

    However, mindful of the need to avoid unnecessary delays to the development consent process, the Secretary of State requests the examining authority to make best efforts to complete the examination process as soon as is reasonably practicable within the extended period. He has requested that a new timetable for the examination should be published which demonstrates the actions to be taken to complete the examination as quickly as possible in this period. He also expects the examination authority to provide his Department with regular updates on progress.

    The decision to set the new deadlines for this application is without prejudice to the decision on whether to grant or refuse development consent.

  • Bridget Phillipson – 2020 Letter on the Job Retention Scheme

    Bridget Phillipson – 2020 Letter on the Job Retention Scheme

    Below is the text of the letter written by Bridget Phillipson, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to Jim Harra, the Permanent Secretary of HMRC, on 9 July 2020.

    Dear Jim,

    First of all, I want to pay tribute to the impressive work of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) staff in recent weeks and months. I know many HMRC staff will have worked for long hours to put in place the systems which have seen the delivery of support we have welcomed, such as the Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. Labour is proud to put on record its thanks to the HMRC staff who work to ensure that taxes are collected fairly and efficiently.

    This morning there are press reports that you required a Ministerial Direction before implementing the Chancellor’s Job Retention Bonus scheme, because of concerns about value for money. You will be aware that these are exactly the concerns that I and other Labour colleagues raised in debate yesterday. This morning the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself admitted on the radio the potential deadweight cost associated with the scheme.

    Ministerial directions can be an important part of how government ensures fast and effective action in a crisis. However, Parliament needs to understand when Ministers are overriding the advice of their own experienced and knowledgeable civil servants. Given both the huge amount of public money involved and the immense importance
    of achieving value for money with government spending, I am requesting that HMRC:

    immediately publish whatever information or analyses HMRC staff prepared such that you informed the Chancellor of the Exchequer that you were unable to support the scheme without a Ministerial Direction;

    immediately publish any estimates or modelling of the scheme you may have prepared, including any work you may have done on this with Treasury colleagues, on the expected uptake of the scheme, including distributional, sectoral, and regional analyses;

    give evidence to Parliament before any legislation is considered which would give effect to the Job Retention Bonus Scheme, in respect of whether the scheme constitutes Value for Money.

    It is so important that we see decisive and effective government action to support jobs, livelihoods, and companies in the months ahead, and value for money is critical.

    Every penny given to those who don’t need it, when whole sectors of our economy are in trouble, is money not available to support jobs at risk, money not helping the families and firms in desperate need.

    You will understand that given the amount of public money involved and the wider
    public interest in effective and efficient public spending, I am publishing this letter.

    Yours sincerely,

    Bridget Phillipson MP

  • Bridget Phillipson – 2020 Comments on Rishi Sunak’s ‘Deadweight’ Comments

    Bridget Phillipson – 2020 Comments on Rishi Sunak’s ‘Deadweight’ Comments

    Below is the text of the comments made by Bridget Phillipson, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 9 July 2020.

    The Government have had months to prepare for the end of lockdown and design targeted support to protect jobs – but instead we have an on-the-hoof fix that the Chancellor himself admits risks wasting billions of pounds of taxpayer money.

    Hard-pressed sectors where thousands of jobs are at risk, like aviation, oil and gas, and tourism, will be missing out on the help they need while companies who are returning to normal get public money they don’t.

    The Chancellor should be targeting support on those who need it, not handing it out aimlessly to those who don’t. It’s not brave to admit the Government plans to waste billions at a time when others are crying out for support.

  • Lucy Powell – 2020 Comments on Job Losses at Boots and John Lewis

    Lucy Powell – 2020 Comments on Job Losses at Boots and John Lewis

    Below is the text of the comments made by Lucy Powell, the Shadow Minister for Business and Consumers, on 9 July 2020.

    This is deeply worrying news for staff at John Lewis and Boots and the travel hubs and town centres these stores are in. These announcements underline the dangers facing our high street, as many businesses struggle to survive through the Covid-19 crisis and the necessary public health measures which limit capacity and demand.

    The Chancellor’s statement was a missed opportunity to protect jobs with properly targeted support for the businesses and people that need it.

    Ministers must acknowledge that different parts of our economy face very different challenges in the months ahead and come forward with a real plan to protect jobs in sectors fully closed or only partially reopened, and develop an urgent programme to boost retailers and save our high streets from becoming ghost towns.