1/ China and the Chinese Communist Party represent the largest threat to Britain and the worldโs security and prosperity this century.
Read this thread๐on how I will face down China.
2/ I would close all 30 of Chinaโs Confucius Institutes in the UK - the highest number in the world.
Almost all UK government spending on Mandarin language teaching at school is channelled through university-based Confucius Institutes, thereby promoting Chinese soft power.
3/ I will build a new international alliance of free nations to tackle Chinese cyber-threats and share best practice in technology security.
4/ I will expand MI5โs reach to provide greater support to British businesses and universities to counter Chinese industrial espionage.
Weโll work across government and with security services to build a toolkit to help companies protect their intellectual property.
5/ I will protect key British assets.
That means examining the need to prevent Chinese acquisitions of key British assets including strategically sensitive tech firms.
1/ The energy regulator OFGEM has announced that the energy price cap will rise in April.
Without action this would be very tough for millions of families.
So we're going to step in and directly help people manage those extra costs with a ยฃ350 Energy Bills Rebate.
Explainer ๐
2/ The first part of the rebate spreads the extra costs of this yearโs energy price shock.
In October all domestic electricity customers will receive a ยฃ200 discount on their bills.
People will then have five years to repay that discount in equal instalments of ยฃ40 a year.
3/ We'll provide more help to those who need it most by discounting Council Tax bills by ยฃ150 in April.
People on middle incomes are struggling right now, too so we're providing the council tax discount to households in Bands A to D - around 80% of all homes in England.
1/ A lot of people are concerned about fraud in our Covid support measures and theyโre absolutely right to be.
No, Iโm not ignoring it, and I'm definitely not โwriting it offโ ๐
2/ Clearly criminals have sought to exploit our support schemes.
Weโre going to do everything we can to get that money back and go after those who took advantage of the pandemic.
3/ We've invested over ยฃ100m in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce with 1,265 staff to combat fraud. That's one of the largest and quickest responses to a fraud risk by @HMRCgovuk ever.
13,000 one-to-one enquiries were opened in 2020/21 and HMRC wrote to 75,000 people.
๐จ At the @G7 in London today, my finance counterparts and I have come to a historic agreement on global tax reform requiring the largest multinational tech giants to pay their fair share of tax in the UK.
๐The thread below explains exactly what this means. #G7UK
2/ Under the principles of the landmark reforms, the largest global firms with profit margins of at least 10% will be in scope โ with 20% of any profit above the 10% margin reallocated and then subjected to tax in the countries where they make sales.
3/ The G7 also agreed to the principle of a global minimum corporation tax on large firms of at least 15% operated on a country-by-country basis โ creating a more level playing field for UK firms and cracking down on tax avoidance.
1/ Todayโs Spending Review delivers on the priorities of the British people.
This thread covers ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ป๐ผ๐๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ from Departments across Government. #SR20
2/ This Spending Review delivers a historically high @UKHomeOffice budget which will help them to keep people safe and deliver new border and immigration arrangements. #SR20
3/ Weโre providing over ยฃ76 billion for @educationgovuk to meet the governmentโs commitment to level up education standards across the country and drive economic growth through improving the skills pipeline; levelling up productivity and supporting people into work. #SR20
1/ Iโm announcing today that Iโm expanding the Jobs Support Scheme.
Where the coronavirus restrictions legally require business premises to close, in any region or nation of the UK, we will help pay employeesโ wages.
2/ So, if your business does close their doors, and you cannot work at all for one week or more, your employer will pay you two thirds of your normal salary, up to ยฃ2,100 a month
โ and the UK government will cover the cost.
3/ The scheme applies to all business premises legally required to close. That includes those told to operate on a collection only or delivery basis.
Unlike the Jobs Support Scheme for open businesses, all weโll ask businesses to pay is Employer NI and pension contributions.
1/ The Job Support Scheme will directly support the wages of people in work, giving businesses who face depressed winter demand the option of keeping employees in a job on shorter hours rather than making them redundant.
2/ The scheme will support viable jobs so ๐๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฒ๐๐๐ฌ ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ค๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ญ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ซ๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ข๐ซ ๐ง๐จ๐ซ๐ฆ๐๐ฅ ๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฌ and be paid for that work, as normal, by their employer.
3/ The government, together with employers, will increase those peopleโs wages ๐๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐/๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ฒ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ฒ ๐ก๐๐ฏ๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฌ๐ญ by reducing their working hours.
The employee will keep their job. Anyone who as of yesterday is employed is eligible.