Lucy Frazer: First, it is important that we work with our local communities, which we are doing, and to use our foreign aid budget to do that. This is a very separate issue. I think what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that we should open our doors to people who are not refugees, because if we are giving people asylum or refuge, they will have access to our education facilities anyway; that is part of the...
Lucy Frazer: The Government have already taken people in through a UN scheme and they are committed to take more. They have already taken refugees through asylum. Of course we need to work at European and international levels, but the UN and countries around the world need to do more. We must call on other countries to live up to the commitment of 0.7%.
Lucy Frazer: I will continue. We need to provide the funding that the UN bodies need to carry on their vital work on the ground. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) rightly recognised, people are leaving Syria simply because they do not have the basic provisions in their own country. The £1 billion that we have already provided in international aid is vital. We have provided 50%...
Lucy Frazer: rose—
Lucy Frazer: I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) on securing such an important debate. The House yesterday debated the crisis unfolding in Syria. The debate made it abundantly clear that if we are to help developing or vulnerable nation states, we need an international approach, clear goals and a long-term strategy. As we can see in the...
Lucy Frazer: I am a little confused. The hon. Lady has said that she supports the policy but is now quoting a load of people who do not support it. Surely, she supports it because it gives hard-working people the chance to keep more of their income and gives businesses certainty about the number of people they can employ.
Lucy Frazer: The Bill is about low taxation. Low taxation is critical to encouraging our businesses and our economy to grow. Low taxation encourages entrepreneurship, and it means that work pays. The commitment not to increase national insurance contributions is a key part of the Government’s triple lock to ensure that we have low taxation for our working nation. As it is paid by both employer and...
Lucy Frazer: I heard the shadow Minister say that this was Labour party policy. What does the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) say to that?
Lucy Frazer: The hon. Lady may know that courts are overruled by higher courts day in, day out in the court system. Should the initial legislation not be passed because it may be overruled at some point in the future?
Lucy Frazer: The hon. Lady mentions certainty. Does she accept that other measures in the Budget, such as the national insurance contribution ceiling, will not only create certainty, but help the small businesses that she is mentioning?
Lucy Frazer: My hon. Friend is highlighting all the important aspects of being connected to the internet, and of broadband, to individuals. Will she also acknowledge that the rural economy is worth £400 billion, and that it is therefore especially important for rural areas to be connected to broadband?
Lucy Frazer: This Bill will ensure that local people have a greater say in the development of their own communities, and I welcome that, but will the Secretary of State be even more ambitious? I represent a constituency in Cambridgeshire, a world-class leader in education, research and entrepreneurship, and I would like to outline, first, why devolved powers are so essential to this region, and secondly,...
Lucy Frazer: I would like to make the point that my learned Friend—my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly)—was making: if there is no basis for this measure, why did the hon. Gentleman agree to it two weeks ago?
Lucy Frazer: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Lucy Frazer: After an intervention, the hon. Lady asked whether Government Members had been listening to the media. I listened to an interview she gave on Radio 4 this morning. She gave only two examples of changes that she would make to the tax system. One related to inheritance tax and the other was to raise the tax threshold to 50p. In 2017-18, that would raise only £270 million. Where would she get...
Lucy Frazer: I support all those who have called for a fairer funding formula, but I would like to develop the argument a little further. Outstanding schools in my constituency, such as Bottisham Village college, do not do well on the funding formula at present, and as a result they are all the more reliant on grants for capital expenditure. Will the Secretary of State consider whether historic...
Lucy Frazer: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve science education.
Lucy Frazer: The Bill is part of the Government’s commitment to simplifying the tax system, but might the freeze on rates and on other taxes lead to complicated attempts to raise taxes in other areas? You have already mentioned that there might be a grant, which might necessitate raising taxes in other areas. Does that, in your opinion, exacerbate the problem of simplifying the tax system?
Lucy Frazer: The Government have committed to simplifying the tax system. Mr Whiting confirmed that this measure will do that, and that it will bring certainty and stability through lack of change. Do you think that the change will have an impact on any other tax measures?
Lucy Frazer: I do not think that any of us dispute the fantastic work that doctors do day in, day out, but we need to debate the motion that the hon. Lady has proposed. She said there were three points that she wants to put to the Secretary of State, but she failed to mention the one in the last line of the motion, which is that she wants proposals to be put forward that are “safe for patients”. Given...
