Gordon Brown: ...book that is full—of course, the buyers would be prepared even now to extend the orders beyond the date they have been given—but the costs have historically been high and so, before even a penny is paid in wages, the factories are having to fork out more money than the sales revenues they receive from their goods. That is the problem we have to address. Of course, the terms on which...
Gordon Brown: ...for a global banking levy; we are in discussions with other countries and making progress on how that could be administered. At the same time, we are determined that the banks pay back every penny that is owed to the British public. That is an essential means by which we reduce the deficit, and any plan to give cut-price shares would mean that the deficit would be higher and the public...
Gordon Brown: ...Smith Romilly Saumarez Smith John Saumarez Smith Laura Saumarez Smith Carey Scott Most Rev. and Rt Hon. John Sentamu Margaret Sentamu Sir Nicholas Serota Michael Shew Paul Skinner Rita Skinner Penny Smith Steve Smith Sir Kevin Smith CBE Lady (Teresa) Smith Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup GCB, AFC, DSc, FRAeS Lady (Mary) Stirrup Dame Barbara Stocking DBE Emma Thompson Justine Thornton...
Gordon Brown: .... We are now working with the Learning and Skills Council to deliver a swift resolution to these issues. Since 2001, 700 projects at 300 colleges have been funded. I have to say that in 1997 not a penny was going to investment in further education colleges. Over this spending period, as a result of the announcements in the Budget, we will be spending £2.6 billion, and I hope that my hon....
Gordon Brown: .... As for local post offices, I understand people's frustrations, but there is a recognised appeal system, which will involve Postwatch, and we have put in £1.7 billion to help post offices. Not a penny was put in by the Conservative Government.
Gordon Brown: ...of what this Government have done, and that the difference between the two sides of the House is that we are prepared to spend more money on the health service. He has never guaranteed an extra penny on the national health service.
Gordon Brown: ...education, health, housing, transport, the Home Office, policing and all the major public services in this country. When the Leader of the Opposition said on radio today that there would be not a penny more for public services, what he meant was that all talk of general reform is designed to obscure a policy of cutting public spending. I defy Opposition Members to go back to their...
Gordon Brown: ...hon. Friend the Paymaster General will tomorrow announce tough new measures to tackle smuggling. Cigarette taxes will rise by 5 per cent. above inflation from tonight by 25p a packet—with every penny of the extra revenue going, as I promised, to funding our hospitals and the national health service. I am also commissioning a long-term assessment of technological, demographic and...
Gordon Brown: ...setting out the new three-year objectives and targets for each service. Therefore, the results that we are demanding, the new standards of efficiency that will have to be met to ensure that every penny is well spent, the procedures for scrutiny and audit that will be set in place, and the reforms that we have agreed, are all based on a modern and clear understanding that Government should...
Gordon Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. When the country finds out that some of these water companies, despite six or seven years of privatisation and record profits, have paid not a penny in mainstream corporation tax, it will be annoyed. Ordinary men and women are paying 23p or 40p in the pound when many water companies have paid absolutely nothing. That is another reason why the action that we...
Gordon Brown: ...sector. Today, for example, the water regulator said that there were excess profits in the water industry. Further, we know that four water companies have been privatised, and have never paid a penny in mainstream corporation tax. Moreover, ordinary people around the country pay a tax rate of 24p in the pound, whereas, since privatisation, water companies pay only 2p in the pound. I...
Gordon Brown: ...help, cuts in the married man's allowance and new airport and car taxes, people are almost £700 worse off under the Conservative Government. Having taken the pounds, they are returning only the pennies. People have suffered enough as a result of the Government's actions.
Gordon Brown: Will the Chancellor confirm that he is this evening offering not a penny more for families with children, the unemployed, the disabled or invalids and that the 25p a week more that he is offering for pensioners must be set against their average £505 fuel bill? If this scheme, which I estimate is worth only £100 million, is not enough to satisfy the country, it should not be enough to...
Gordon Brown: ...a week. Six days of freezing weather are not enough: a pensioner ends up with no help at all. The scheme demands that, in addition to being old, one must also be penniless and freezing before a penny can be claimed. Kafka would have been proud to invent that scheme. For British pensioners it is cold comfort indeed. Pensioners cannot heat their homes with false Government promises. Why did...
Gordon Brown: ...of money by Britain for anti-fraud work relating to the CAP. In 1991, the European Community made available to Britain 1.5 million ecu for anti-fraud work, but the British Government took up not a penny; in 1992, 1.4 million ecu were available, but 80 per cent. of that sum was not taken up; in 1993, 92 per cent. of the available money was not taken up. In total, just 11 per cent. of the...
Gordon Brown: ...campaign. He said: I have no doubt that we will be able to make further reductions in the rate of taxation. We will make further reductions in the rate of taxation but perhaps not at the rate of a penny per year but we will be able to make reductions year on year at a smaller rate. Yet what do we have in the Budget? We have three separate increases in our income tax bills from April next...
Gordon Brown: ...Minister said at the time not only that taxes would not rise but that they were going to fall. He said: We will make further reductions in the rate of taxation, but perhaps not at the rate of a penny a year. Was not that supposed to be taken as a commitment?
Gordon Brown: ...employment measures and the industrial strategy that Britain needs—the essential direct construction measures which would lie at the heart of any recovery programme. Is it not true that not one penny of the £5 billion in capital receipts which local authorities have amassed will be released as a result of the Chancellor's proposals? He is allowing local authorities to spend in a year...
Gordon Brown: .... A widow came to see me who has a pension of £41·15, who has received, and still receives, industrial death benefit because her husband died of asbestosis. She told me that she had counted the pennies for years and that she had made every economy that the Prime Minister had asked of her. She said that she had prepared herself for a rent rise of £1·50 but suddenly found that she was...
Gordon Brown: ...Office references to the last Labour Government. It was completely oblivious to the £60,000 million windfall benefits of North sea oil that the Government have been lucky enough to enjoy. Not a penny in extra cash is being offered for any part of the National Health Service. No health authorities will be better off as a result of any announcement that the Chief Secretary has made.