Emma Little Pengelly: Five hundred and forty-five days ago, Martin McGuinness, the then Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, resigned. That action, which was not agreed with us, Sinn Féin’s partners in government—it was a unilateral decision—triggered the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly. On 24 January 2017, I was in the Northern Ireland Assembly during the last few hours of...
Emma Little Pengelly: I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. The reality is that the Democratic Unionist party is a party of devolution. We want to get the Assembly restored. We do not want direct rule, but we need direct rule. The people of Northern Ireland need direct decision making, because urgent decisions are not being made at the moment. I would say to the Minister and to the Secretary of State that...
Emma Little Pengelly: I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is considering the judgment, which deals with a big decision made by a permanent secretary—a civil servant. However, that situation does not accurately reflect the fact that hundreds of decisions across all the Departments are not being made, and cannot be made unless there is a Minister in charge to make them.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the average benefit per applicant for tax-free childcare.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the childcare voucher scheme in 2017-18.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of tax-free childcare to those families currently registered for it.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average payment is from tax-free childcare accounts to families where parents are higher rate tax payers since those accounts were established.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average payment is from tax-free childcare accounts to families where parents are basic rate tax payers since those accounts were established.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of tax-free childcare accounts have received the maximum top-up of £2,000 since those accounts were established.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of tax-free childcare accounts are used by households of self-employed parents.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many families have paid into a Tax-Free Childcare accounts as of 11 June 2018.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many families have had money paid out of a Tax-Free Childcare account to a childcare provider as of 11 June 2018.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much has been spent from the public purse on call centre staff for Tax Free Childcare; and whether that expenditure is in addition to the funding allocated to pay ATOS for the administration of the Childcare Choices website.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish the evidential basis for the claim in the oral contribution of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to the Treasury Select Committee on 31 January that only half of UK employees work for employers that offer childcare vouchers.
Emma Little Pengelly: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential merits of replacing the Tax Free Childcare online service with an alternative online service as a result of the technical problems with the existing service.
Emma Little Pengelly: I welcome the motion before the House today. As with the previous debate, I believe this is a logical and sensible approach as we move through Brexit into the transition and into renegotiating these matters. The Democratic Unionist party will therefore be supporting the motion. In Northern Ireland, we have a number of Japanese-owned businesses. This has happened more through an organic...
Emma Little Pengelly: Absolutely. As I indicated, I fully support the desire of the Secretary of State and the UK Government to secure those agreements and roll them forward. It is absolutely clear that the best approach—the logical, sensible approach—is to secure the current situation. We should agree this motion, as we agreed the previous motion, and use that as the foundation to build on and...
Emma Little Pengelly: I want to speak briefly to put on record my support and that of the Democratic Unionist party for the motion and the proposed route forward. Ensuring a strong British economy necessitates a continued and growing role for the United Kingdom in international trade. Northern Ireland already plays a strong part in the overall UK trading picture, but we too want to improve and enhance what we do....
Emma Little Pengelly: Our armed forces and security forces served bravely and valiantly during the troubles. What action has the Secretary of State taken to ensure that no one who served is unnecessarily dragged into the criminal justice system for actions that have already been investigated?
Emma Little Pengelly: I thank the Minister for her direct engagement with me on this issue and commend her for the very swift action. This is a devolved issue, but it is one that should unite all parties in Northern Ireland. Will she commit to meeting me, so that the work being undertaken can be shared and we are then able to bring that forward in the Northern Ireland Assembly as soon as possible?