. However, Mr Harper declined to be drawn on whether Mr Hancock should stand down as an MP. Mr Harper told Sky News: "The chief whip has made the position clear, which is he's made a decision that going on I'm a Celebrity is not compatible with doing your job properly as a Member of Parliament, which is why the whip has been taken away, and as a former chief whip I completely support those decisions taken by my successor to support him standing down as an MP." Pressed on whether Mr Hancock should stand down as an MP, Mr Harper said: "What he chooses to do in the future is a matter for him." 8:17AM A Cabinet minister has not denied that people are facing "tax rises across the board" at the Autumn Statement on November 17. Asked the question during an interview on Sky News this morning, Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, said that a "credible plan is going to require tough decisions. He said: "The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have both been clear in the Autumn Statement that we have obviously got to set out a very credible fiscal plan. "We are going to have to make difficult decisions. It would be quite wrong for me to speculate on those so I am not going to go beyond what either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor has said already. "But look, we are going to have to make difficult decisions. It is important, if we produce an Autumn Statement that is credible that will mean that we bear down on inflation more quickly and why that matters to people… is that means we will be able to have interest rates lower than they would otherwise be which obviously directly feeds through into people's mortgages. "So a credible plan is going to require tough decisions but obviously the Chancellor will lay out both sides of the ledger as it were, the tax measures and spending measures in one p){kind=link}
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France needs to “do more” to tackle the Channel migrants crossing crisis, a Cabinet minister has said.
Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, said France does “a lot already” but could step up its efforts still further as he also argued the UK “could do more as well”.
He told Sky News: “I think both countries, Britain and France, could do more. What we need to do is work with the French, they do a lot already.
“We provide resources to help them and, of course, people will know our border controls in France are actually physically located in France, and we’ve always worked in close partnership with French authorities.