Pre-Budget Report

In my role as a PPS (Parliamentary Private Secretary) in the Treasury the Pre-Budget Report was the key event in Parliament this week. This is a time of uncertainty none of us have experienced before in our lifetimes and I think it is clear that the Government needs to do what it can to help the country through this.

Essentially there were two key strands in this week’s announcement. Firstly there were measures to boost the economy to make sure we come out of the downturn sooner and stronger – these included a reduction in VAT (worth £275 for an average household and putting £12.4bn into the economy), help for small businesses (on tax and to provide them with temporary loans) and bringing forward £3bn of public spending planned for future years.

These should put more money into the economy now and the important aim of this is to keep people in and create jobs.

The second key strand of the announcement is support for people who are vulnerable in this time which many I know many people in our constituency will welcome. This means:

1. Every basic rate taxpayer now has an additional £145 in their tax allowance (increasing this from £120 earlier this year and making it permanent)

2. A £60 payment for every pensioner in January

3. A £70 payment for families with disabled children in January

4. Increasing Child Benefit to £20 a week from January instead of April

5. An increase of over £230 in the state pension over a year from April

6. An increase of over £300 for pension credit over a year (over £450 for couples) from April

7. No-one earning under £20,000 will pay National Insurance

8. A three month suspension on repossessions for homeowners in arrears

9. Doubling the value of homes eligible for support with mortgage payments for those who have lost their jobs

10. £15m investment into free debt advice

11. Setting up a Savings Gateway from 2010 meaning 8 million people on low incomes will get 50p of Government money for every pound they save

I think it is right for us to borrow and spend to help people, and in turn, the economy, through these times and I also think it is right that those earning the most and in the top 1% pay more towards this.

Sir Michael Lyons and Nigeria Visit

This week I also met Sir Michael Lyons, Chair of the BBC Trust, to discuss the future of the communications and media industries and the recent events at the BBC. I think that the anger people have over the phone calls to Andrew Sachs are because we expect better quality from the BBC and from licence fee money we all pay and we spoke about this. I also discussed Pacific Quay with him and the need for the BBC to invest outside of London and reflect the whole country.

Finally, I have met with a number of people this week to discuss a visit to Nigeria with the All Party Parliamentary Group on the country which I am chair of. We will meet people in the Government, industry and running projects on the ground and produce a report on the progress being made in Nigeria and the challenges it faces. It is a country with great potential but many problems and the aim is to increase understanding of both of these to improve engagement with the UK. I will try to update you from Nigeria next week so you can see the work I am doing on this when we are there.