Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-02-01
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Questions:   Will my right hon. Friend urgently review the Government’s pothole fund and consider whether the level is sufficient to adequately maintain the road networks, given the current rising cost of materials and labour? Will he also consider setting the budgets for three or more years ahead, to allow councils to plan more effectively, rather than it being an annual allocation?; Does the Chancellor agree that one of the key lessons from the pandemic was about helping people to improve their own financial resilience by saving? Will he now finally support measures to extend auto-enrolment down to the first pound of earnings and down to those aged 18, so that we can help everyone start saving for a pension for their retirement?; Does my hon. Friend have plans to help high streets such as that in Barnstaple in North Devon, which has many large vacant units with several storage floors above them, with measures such as business rates reform or a redevelopment fund, to enable those empty buildings to be repurposed and become smaller units combined with much-needed housing, so that town centres can bounce back after covid?;   Pubs, restaurants, cafés and hotels were brought to their knees again over the festive period as people simply stayed at home. Will the Financial Secretary consider extending the reduced rate of VAT on hospitality and tourism to help those hard-hit businesses?; Threats to Putin’s regime would be stronger if the Government had implemented the recommendations of the 2020 Russia report. The lack of progress in the registration of overseas entities Bill and the economic crime Bill rings alarm bells here and with our allies. Will the Chancellor explain his failure to take action in our national interest and name a date for that to be remedied?; I have heard a great deal from the local authorities that serve my constituency about the benefits of early intervention, especially when it comes to tackling poverty and disadvantage. What assessment is the Treasury planning to undertake to establish the benefits to taxpayers of that investment in vital services?; Government Ministers will know that bus manufacture is an important skilled employment base in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The zero-emission bus regional areas programme, which is due to bring in innovation in engine technology, is supposed to be technologically neutral, even though we know that hydrogen buses almost certainly create more jobs in the UK. In that context, can the Chancellor tell us why every scheme so far has been for electric vehicles and not hydrogen technology? Is that a Treasury bias or a bias in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy?
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He has a long-standing interest in the issue. The difference between the two is that people received compensation from Equitable Life on the basis of relative losses, which is the gap between what they received from their policy and what they could have expected from investing in a similar product. With LCF, the bondholders were expected to lose the majority of their principal investment and stood to get less back than they put in. The schemes were looked at in the context of their respective instruments and appropriate support was given. There are no plans to open up compensation for Equitable Life again.