16:33 - divided: - Ayes: 231 / Noes: 305 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:31 - divided: - Ayes: 230 / Noes: 309 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:42 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 229 / Noes: 306 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:57 - The House divided: - Ayes: 307 / Noes: 226 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Before speaking to clauses 66 and 67 and new clause 1, may I first say what a great pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Dawn? This is the last of a great number of Finance Bills in which you have played one role or another, and I have had the privilege of serving with you on a number of those occasions. This is the last afternoon on which you will be dealing with tax matters, having done so for an unconscionably long period, so I thank you for all that you have done over many years and for your service as Deputy Speaker and wish you a very happy retirement.
Clauses 66 and 67 set out the Bill’s provisions on VAT. Clause 66 refunds VAT to charities involved in co-ordinated search and rescue operations, air ambulance charities, hospice charities and blood bike medical courier charities. Clause 67 refunds the same levels of VAT to the strategic highways company—from 1 April it will take over the functions of the Highways Agency—as are paid to the Highways Agency itself. It is largely a tidying-up matter.
It is worth pointing out that refunding VAT will benefit around 400 charities that work alongside the emergency services, provide palliative care to terminally ill patients or support the national health service. The Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted in my constituency is very appreciative of the measure and thinks that it will make a significant difference to the service it can provide to my constituents in South West Hertfordshire. I suspect that clauses 66 and 67 will not cause great controversy in Committee, but I will of course be happy to take any questions on them.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
I am sure that we all welcome the clauses relating to VAT relief for hospices, which do such a tremendous job. Can the Financial Secretary help me by explaining how charities are selected and how VAT exemptions are secured? I have previously raised the case of a charity dealing with disabled people in Wrexham that provides transport services, which are subject to VAT under the current arrangements. The process of securing exemptions seems easier for ski lifts, for example, than for disabled people in my constituency, so I would be interested to find out how on earth one secures exemptions for worthy charities.
Mr Gauke
I have heard the hon. Gentleman make both points in the past, and if I remember correctly, I responded to an Adjournment debate on those matters. There are significant benefits in our tax system for charities, but the Government look at cases partly depending on the demands on the public finances and what is affordable. We have looked in particular at hospices. There is a particularly strong case there, and to some extent they are put at a disadvantage compared with parts of the NHS because of the irrecoverable VAT that they pay. This is a matter that any Government would keep under review. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, as a persistent Member, will raise the matter again if he has the opportunity to do so in future.
In new clause 1, the Opposition ask us to publish a report on the impact of the increase in the standard rate of VAT in 2010. No doubt, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) will set out her thinking on that, but let me make a pre-emptive strike, if the Prime Minister has not already done so. Before I turn to the details and the imposition of VAT in 2010, I shall briefly set out the context for that decision.
Let us be clear that we increased the standard rate of VAT in 2010 as a consequence of the mess that the Opposition left the public finances in and the fact that, although the previous Government had left a mess, they had not left behind a plan to clear it up. Of course, a tax impact information note was published by HM Revenue and Customs at the time of the June 2010 Budget, but let us look at the situation that we inherited. At that time, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s pre-Budget 2010 forecast revealed that the structural deficit—the part of the deficit that will not go away with the recovery—was higher than previously thought: around £9 billion or 0.6% of GDP higher in 2010-11. Debt repayments were forecast to reach more than £67 billion by 2014-15, more than was spent on defence or on schools in England. The UK had one of the highest deficits of any advanced economy, so this Government had to take urgent action to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit, which is a necessary precondition for sustained economic growth.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The Minister referred to the Prime Minister’s pre-emptive strike, but he will be well aware that similar statements were made before the last election. Does not the whole VAT issue illustrate the difference between the parties? The Labour Government’s response to an economic recession was to stimulate the economy by reducing VAT. The response of the incoming Government was to deflate the economy by increasing VAT.
Mr Gauke
The previous Government brought VAT back up. We know from his memoirs that the then Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), believed that a Labour Government after 2010 should increase VAT. A Budget document was even published showing VAT going up to, I believe, 18.5%. I know that that was published by mistake, but it clearly shows that serious consideration was given to that. The previous Labour Government recognised that taxes would have to increase. They had proposals to increase employers national insurance contributions, or the jobs tax. Given that there is such uncertainty about the Opposition’s plans for what they would do in government, the question is whether they would rule out increasing employers national insurance contributions.
Shabana Mahmood
I am grateful to the Financial Secretary. As we have been in the Chamber, he may not be aware that we have ruled out any rise in national insurance.
Mr Gauke
Well, there we go. I am struck by the fact that the Leader of the Opposition was very reluctant to say that earlier, but I am pleased that he has been bounced into providing that clarification. [Interruption.] I noticed that he did not answer questions earlier today. [Interruption.] Indeed, he will never have the chance to answer questions at Prime Minister’s Question Time.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
It has taken me five years to learn that Prime Minister’s questions is about the Leader of the Opposition and us asking questions and the Prime Minister not answering them. It is not Leader of the Opposition’s questions; it is Prime Minister’s questions. We do not answer questions; the Government are supposed to.
Mr Gauke
I notice that the hon. Lady does not answer questions. I am glad we finally got some clarification on that point, but as I say, I do not think the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) will ever have the opportunity to answer Prime Minister’s questions.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that VAT is a regressive tax in principle? Can he tell us why the Government chose to use an increase in VAT as a tool for bringing down the deficit?
Mr Gauke
I will turn to that question in a moment, but before I do so, I shall say a little about this Government’s record.
High public debt can lead to a loss of market confidence and higher market interest rates, raising the cost of borrowing for families and businesses and discouraging investment and consumer spending. So what has our long-term economic plan delivered? Today public sector net borrowing as a percentage of GDP is forecast to have halved between 2009-10 and 2014-15. Latest data from the IMF show that this Government also reduced the structural deficit by more than half between 2010 and 2013. In fact, the UK’s structural deficit fell by 4.6% of GDP over 2010 to 2013—a larger reduction than any other country in the G7.
Since the autumn statement last year, the UK’s fiscal position has improved right across the forecast period, with higher receipts and lower debt interest. This Government have restored stability, put the public finances on a sustainable path and are about to put public sector net debt on to a declining path as a share of GDP.
Mr Gauke
Let me make a little more progress.
The previous Government failed to take decisive action to get our country moving again. Our record speaks for itself. Employment is now at its highest ever level. Economic growth is now firmly in place and at the Budget the OBR revised up its forecasts. The UK economy is forecast to grow by 2.5% in 2015, 2.3% in 2016, 2.3% in 2017, rising to 2.4% in 2019.
Mr Gauke
I suggest that the hon. Gentleman look at the analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility of why its forecasts on deficit reduction were not met. It has been very clear that the three reasons it did not happen were the eurozone crisis; the after-effects of the financial crisis being greater than it or, indeed, other independent observers had expected; and higher commodity prices than had been expected. That made deficit reduction harder than it would otherwise have been.
The critique of Labour Members is sometimes to say that we have rigidly stuck to our plans to reduce spending, and on other occasions to say that we have failed to reduce the deficit as fast as we said we would. As regards our spending plans, the departmental and welfare spending reductions that we set out have been delivered. The automatic stabilisers came into effect; we have shown the flexibility to allow that to happen. As a consequence, we have delivered what we set out in terms of reducing spending, although we have faced more difficult circumstances. Labour Members are all over the place in this debate. Sometimes they say that we have stuck rigidly to plans that we should not have stuck to, and at other times they say that we have let the deficit rise.
We must remember that Labour Members opposed every single measure that we took to reduce the deficit. Had they been in power and had they been consistent in what they said—at least in their rhetoric—in opposition, we would have seen borrowing at a substantially higher level over the past few years, leaving our public finances in an unsustainable position, putting our recovery at risk, and damaging the economic credibility of the United Kingdom. Thankfully, they did not have the opportunity to crash the car, having done so once already.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the deficit targets were not satisfied because the growth projections went down, and that is because consumption went down, and that is because VAT went up? I appreciate what the Prime Minister said earlier, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that if VAT went up now, when we have 0% inflation, that would spiral the economy down, and that it would be better to reduce VAT than to reduce tax thresholds in order to stimulate growth to balance the books?
Geraint Davies
I am saying that given a choice between lower VAT or lower tax thresholds, does the hon. Gentleman accept that lower VAT would give higher growth and help to reduce the deficit—or is he a just a politician without any economic sense?
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
Does the Minister share my surprise that a policy is being proposed whereby the biggest winners would be pop stars, premiership footballers and bankers, who spend the most?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I will come back to that later.
Our long-term economic plan has delivered economic growth and record levels of employment, and it has put this country on a sustainable economic footing. Specifically on VAT, we have maintained the VAT registration threshold, which is now £82,000—the highest in the EU. That is of significant benefit to small businesses right across the country. While the bulk of the deficit reduction has come from spending, we chose to increase VAT from 2011. If it is necessary to raise large sums of money, as it clearly was in 2010 when we saw the structural deficit deteriorate—at least, the assessment made by the previous Government, and then by the independent OBR, showed a significant deterioration—then it is necessary to raise one of the bigger taxes.
Happily, we are no longer in that situation under the plans put forward by the Conservative party. I am afraid that Labour Members’ plans—not engaging in reducing the welfare budget and not committing themselves to controlling departmental spending in the way we would—mean that they will need to find a substantial tax increase. A Labour Government in 2010 would have put up the jobs tax—a different choice from ours. In those circumstances, it is hard to believe that we would have 1.9 million more people in work today than we had in 2010.
Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
If the Conservatives’ plan was so brilliant, will the Minister explain why, even at the height of the global crash in the UK, under the Labour Government we did not lose our triple A credit rating, but on his watch we did?
Mr Gauke
We have retained the confidence of the markets, and we have retained very low long-term interest rates. When we came to power, we were on a par with the likes of Spain and Italy; now, we are seen very much as a safe haven. The UK’s fiscal credibility has been maintained, and it would not have been had we stuck to Labour’s plans, even with a significant increase in the jobs tax.
Julie Hilling
Does the Minister not see that raising VAT and cutting benefits hits the most vulnerable in society? Does he think it is right that children in this country should lose weight over school summer holidays because their parents do not have enough money to feed them, that people are dependent on food banks, and that we have had people starve to death because of benefit cuts? Is that the way this country should be in this day and age?
Mr Gauke
Under this Government, child poverty has fallen, and pensioner poverty is at a lower level than it has ever been. Only today, we have seen numbers showing that there are 600,000 fewer workless households than there were in 2010. If we wish to deal with poverty, and we certainly do, the best way is to have a job-creating, growing economy, and that is precisely what the long-term economic plan is delivering.
To be fair to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), he says that he would cut VAT, but I am not hearing that from Labour Front Benchers. I must remind Labour Members that, with a handful of exceptions, none of them voted against the increase in VAT in 2010. I note that one of the handful of exceptions is sitting on the Opposition Benches, but Labour Members did not vote against it.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
On the subject of deficit reduction, does my hon. Friend recall a report from the IFS a little while ago that said that Labour’s plans would have resulted in about £200 billion more borrowing if the Labour Government had continued, given the change in circumstances? Does that not show that there is a massive black hole at the heart of Labour Members’ current plans that would be made worse by the out-of-the-blue, panicky pledges on tax that they are suddenly making on the hoof on the news after pressure at today’s Prime Minister’s questions?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend makes a good point that is very relevant to the debate we are having about VAT.
The three main parties in this House have agreed that we will deliver a cyclical current budget surplus by 2017-18; that is what the charter of fiscal responsibility states. The vast majority of Labour Members trooped through the Lobby to support that measure. Independent analysis, as well as the Treasury’s analysis, confirmed that that requires some £30 billion-worth of fiscal adjustments. From my party’s point of view, that would be made up of £13 billion from departmental spending, £12 billion from welfare spending, and £5 billion from anti-tax evasion and tax avoidance measures.
The Liberal Democrats have set out how they will get their £30 billion. Their plan has a different balance and make-up from the Conservative plan, but they have set it out. The Labour party has not set out how it will reach that £30 billion. If Labour is not going to cut welfare in the way the Conservatives are, and if it is not going to cut departmental spending as we are—as far as I can see, that, after all, is the heart of Labour’s election campaign—more money must come from tax. That is why the question of who will raise taxes and what taxes will be raised is much more acute for Labour Members. They have questions to answer. There is a gap in their public finance plans, whereas we have set out plans that do not require us to put up taxes on hard-working people.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Minister is being unfair to Labour Members. They will manage to reduce the deficit by not opening any more free schools, and by abolishing police and crime commissioners. That will undoubtedly solve the problem.
Mr Gauke
We must not forget that Labour will put up gun licences—that is also on the list.
I note that the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), announced yesterday that she will “abolish the bedroom tax” and use the savings for something else. I am not sure that I understand how there can be savings from that measure.
Mr Gauke
What I have said is consistent with what the Chancellor has said again and again. Our plans do not require us to increase taxes for hard-working people, which is why we can rule out putting up VAT—[Interruption]—or extending it. The point the hon. Gentleman must answer is that his plans require taxes or borrowing to go up. He wants to ask hard questions about filling in fiscal black holes by raising taxes. They are questions for Labour Front Benchers, not for me, because our plans clearly do not need it.
Geraint Davies
The Minister assumes that the choice is between tax and spend. Does he accept that if the tax and spend options are made in one way rather than another they will promote more growth and therefore more revenues? If more money goes to poorer people who spend all their money, as opposed to rich people who hide it in tax havens—10% of UK wealth is offshore—and if we had a Labour Government and a fairer distribution, we would surely have more growth and fewer cuts.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
Order. I shall ask Members once not to shout across the Chamber at one another, and to listen to whoever is on their feet, which at this time is the Minister.
Mr Gauke
Thank you, Mr Hood.
When President Hollande took office, with the enthusiasm and support of the Labour party in this country, I have no doubt that he wanted growth to increase in France. The fact that our economy is growing something like seven times faster than France’s is not because of a lack of desire on the part of the French Government, but because some policies work better than others. The Labour party’s policies would not result in higher growth—it is so anti-business that it would drive investment from this country, and its tax policies seek to punish wealth creators. I question Labour’s supply-side policies.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
Does not the latest Labour U-turn on the jobs tax—perhaps it was forced into it—create an even bigger black hole in its finances? How will Labour balance the books?
Mr Gauke
He does. I am sure he was a very young man at the time. Under a great deal of pressure, Hugh Gaitskell ruled out all sorts of tax increases and at the same time made all sorts of promises about public spending. The British people rumbled the Labour party in 1959 and did not believe that that was a credible position. As a consequence, they returned a Conservative Government with an even bigger majority. Labour Members might want to be a bit careful about drawing parallels with 1959.
Mr Love
As we are talking about rumbling the Government, the election will be an opportunity to scrutinise the Chancellor’s claim about the £30 billion of savings. He has said there will be £12 billion savings from welfare reform but has indicated how only £3 billion will be found. He has said he will get £5 billion from anti-evasion and avoidance measures, but has indicated where only £3 billion of that will come from. There is still a huge credibility gap. Will the Minister help us with it?
Mr Gauke
I will tell the hon. Gentleman where the credibility gap is. Labour Members effectively voted for a £30 billion target. They then denied it. They now will not indicate what adjustments they will undertake in 2016-17 and 2017-18. They have not said how they will reduce departmental spending, or how, or whether, they will reduce welfare spending. They have not said how much they will raise from tax. If they will not give us answers to those questions, we can only assume that it is because they intend to tax and borrow more. If they will not provide clarity on that, we will make that point time and again.
Charlie Elphicke
Speaking of Labour’s spending and tax commitments, how many times over have Labour Members spent the bank bonus tax? Is it 10 times, or more? I have lost count.
Shabana Mahmood
For the avoidance of doubt, and for what feels like the 278th time in Treasury debates, I should tell the Minister that the bank bonus tax will pay for one policy and only one policy: the paid starter jobs—the compulsory jobs guarantee. Why do the Government not match us on that policy rather than harp on about their failed rhetoric on the bank bonus tax?
Stephen Pound
I would be delighted to do so. I campaigned against Sir Oswald Mosley in Kensington North—admittedly, I was only 11 years old, but I did a fairly good job. He did not win.
I put it to the Minister that, in 1959, the Conservative party was very different—it was a much more consensual, nay Butskellite, Conservative party. One thing the Conservatives stood on was house building. They had a proud record. Does the Minister believe that the Bill will help house building in this country?
Mr Gauke
I share the view that we need to build more houses in this country, but I am pleased that last year housing starts were at a record high for seven years or so, that planning permissions are going up, and that we have reformed planning law to enable more houses to be built. In the Budget last week, there were details of 20 housing zones that could support something like 45,000 homes. That is consistent with a desire to ensure greater opportunity for people to acquire their own home.
It is also worth pointing out that in last week’s Budget we introduced Help to Buy individual savings accounts, which will enable people to acquire deposits so that they can enter the housing market. In terms of continuity, I would not necessarily be proud of everything connected with the Conservative Government of the 1950s. I absolutely think we need to do more to get more people into the housing market, and this Government are delivering on that and we are definitely moving in the right direction.
Mr Gauke
It should be noted that the Office for Budget Responsibility does not believe that any of the measures announced last week will feed through to higher house prices. We also announced supply-side policies and 20 housing zones last week. It is right that we take steps to support supply.
The hon. Gentleman said that I was being generous with my time, but I am conscious that I am also being generous with the Committee’s time, so let me make a little progress. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright), the VAT increase in 2010 applied only to the standard rate. Everyday essentials such as food and children’s clothing, as well as newspapers and printed books, have remained zero-rated throughout this Parliament, which protects those on low and middle incomes. On fairness, we have reduced income tax for more than 27 million individuals, with basic rate taxpayers £905 better off in cash terms compared with 2010.
There is no need to publish a report on the impacts of the rise in VAT announced in 2010—a rise that, after all, the Labour party did not oppose. The Government’s economic record speaks for itself: record employment in the UK against virtually record unemployment in France. By 2017, basic rate taxpayers will be £905 better off in cash terms compared with 2010, and 3.7 million individuals with low incomes will have been taken out of income tax altogether. The European Union’s own analysis describes UK living standards as the fourth highest in the EU, above those of France, Italy, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands.
We have delivered sustainable economic growth while across the EU economies stagnate, but we recognise that the job is not finished. This Government continue to take the difficult decisions needed to secure a responsible recovery and stay on course to prosperity. I therefore hope that the Labour party will not press new clause 1 and that clauses 66 and 67 will stand part of the Bill.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
I have now to announce the result of the deferred Division on the question relating to the draft Infrastructure Planning (Radioactive Waste Geological Disposal Facilities) Order 2015. The Ayes were 277 and the Noes were 33, so the Question was agreed to.
[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]
Shabana Mahmood
I was just about to make exactly that point. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that in 2012, having already done what all Conservative Chancellors do and put up VAT, the Chancellor sought to expand it by applying it to pasties and caravans in the so-called omnishambles Budget. I have always thought that it was a bit of a shame that that term from “The Thick of It” was used, because if the sequence of events that unfolded following that Budget had been presented to the scriptwriters of “The Thick of It”, they would not have touched it. They would have said that even for “The Thick of It” it was an unbelievable series of events. Yet that is what the Chancellor delivered. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Chancellor tried to expand the scope of VAT, yet today the Conservatives wonder why nobody will believe what the Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions.
We do not have to go back over the past 20 or 30 years. We can just look at the record of the current Chancellor and Prime Minister on VAT. They like to put it up, and they sought to expand its application. I noticed that earlier the Financial Secretary appeared to rule out an expansion of VAT, but I was not entirely sure whether he had done that deliberately. Will he intervene on me to confirm that not only will VAT not go up—that is according to the Prime Minister, although I do not believe it—but it will not be expanded? I wonder why the Financial Secretary is not biting my arm off to intervene and confirm that.
Shabana Mahmood
So basically, both those things are definitely going to happen if the Financial Secretary’s party is elected in a few weeks’ time.
Where are we today? The same old Tories and the same old story. Whatever the Prime Minister has said today simply will not answer the justifiable charge against the Government about why they should be trusted if we look only at their record and at what they have delivered in this Parliament. They broke their promise after the last general election and they will do the same after the next one. At the end of each Parliament since 1979 in which the Tories have been in government, they have raised an average of £13.5 billion from VAT changes. The electorate know that when it comes to VAT and the Tories, actions will always speak louder than words. People know that they cannot be trusted because they break their promises again and again. They broke their promises in 1979, 1992 and 2010, and they will break them in 2015.
Sheila Gilmore
Thank you for your guidance, Mr Hood. I am sure that you would not want me to stray on to the whole issue of food banks, which would probably take us to midnight.
In conclusion, new clause 1 would provide us with an opportunity to look at the impact of VAT changes over this Parliament. We believe that they have been regressive and that many of our constituents have been affected, and we are concerned about the future. We need to look very carefully at what has happened before any decisions are made on further increases. We are always taken to task for proposing new clauses to Finance Bills that would set up reviews, and I understand that there are technical difficulties. I am sure that current Government Members will have the same difficulty when they come to scrutinise a Finance Bill in opposition in the next Parliament. Perhaps we will then make the alternative criticisms.
It is important that we fully understand the impact of the VAT changes, and not just through some kind of impact assessment that is done theoretically, but through an assessment of what has actually happened; they are not always the same thing. However, such proposals have been turned down in every Finance Bill I have encountered in this Parliament. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke)—he has still not returned to his seat—and I are obviously similar; we are either terribly keen to serve on Finance Bill Committees, or we are such a soft touch that when our Front Bench teams or Whips ask, “Wouldn’t you like to serve on the Finance Bill Committee?”, we say, “Oh, all right then.” Some of us have certainly done our stints on Finance Bill Committees, and I am sure that we all hope to be able to do so again from a governmental position.
Mr Gauke
We have had a lively debate and heard contributions from a number of Members who could be described as Finance Bill recidivists. I am delighted that so many of them were able to participate on this, the last occasion to debate tax matters in this Parliament. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) talked about VAT on sanitary products. Under EU law, we are permitted to have a reduced rate for sanitary products—indeed, it has been reduced to 5%—but they are not among the products for which we can have a zero rate under EU law. Consequently, without changes at EU level, it is not possible to reduce it further. I have a lot of sympathy with the argument that is made on that point, but it would need to be addressed at EU level.
Fiona O'Donnell
The Chancellor fought incredibly hard in the EU to protect bankers bonuses, so can the Minister tell us what efforts the Government have made to have that rule changed?
Mr Gauke
This has been a long-standing issue. The experience of trying to bring in new zero rates has been very difficult. If an opportunity arose, any future Government would want to pursue that.
Let me make a couple of points. We need to make progress on a number of items of business this afternoon. On living standards, this Government have taken many steps to help with living standards in difficult circumstances, such as the increase in the personal allowance, the freezing of fuel duty and the freezing of council tax. With reference to the impact on small businesses, this Government have a proud record of helping small businesses in the current difficult circumstances, not least by introducing the employment allowance, which is a cut in the jobs tax, and introducing an exemption for under 21s starting in April, which is a cut in the jobs tax. The following year, there will be no jobs tax for apprentices under the age of 25. We have a record of reducing the jobs tax. That is not the position of Labour.
My party has set out how we will reduce the deficit in terms of departmental spending, welfare and tax evasion and tax avoidance. Our plans are clear. The same is not the case with the Opposition. There is a black hole in their finances. As a consequence, the risk of a big increase in tax from the Opposition is clear. Their tax of choice is employers national insurance contributions. That is the one that the British public should be frightened of. The Leader of the Opposition refused to rule it out earlier. I understand that a panicky press release was issued this afternoon, but the British public know very clearly what will happen under a Labour Government—borrowing and taxes will go up. Consequently, I urge the British people not to allow that to happen, and I urge the Committee to reject new clause 1 today.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 66 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 67 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
Report on impact of value added tax
(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer shall, within three months of the passing of this Act, publish a report on the impact of the increase in the standard rate of VAT which took effect from 4 January 2011.
(2) The report must estimate the impact of the increase in the standard rate of value added tax on—
(a) living standards;
(b) small businesses;
(c) the fairness of the taxation system; and
(d) economic growth.—(Shabana Mahmood.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The measure has a static cost of £3 billion a year, and behavioural changes also have an impact. That is the hot debate in which the Minister and I have been engaged ever since I have been in the shadow Treasury team.
Mr Gauke
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point about the static and behavioural effects. She will be aware that the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said:
“We have a choice about a tax rate that would raise £3 billion”.—[Official Report, 5 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 849.]
Does she believe that putting the 45p rate back to 50p would raise £3 billion for the Exchequer?
Shabana Mahmood
As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is precisely to get that additional data that we have tabled this and similar amendments ever since the change was made. Why would the Government go through the process of looking at yield and getting HMRC to produce a report in 2011? That is important, because everyone knew—both at the time and ever since—that there were not enough data to come to an accurate view about yield as the rate had not been in place long enough. To put it bluntly, the Chancellor probably felt that some people might not agree with his decision to give people earning more than £150,000 a massive tax cut, given the state of the rest of the economy and the crushing of people’s living standards on his watch. What he needed to back his decision was a report that said that the 50p rate hardly raised anything at all, which is precisely what the HMRC report said. After analysing a host of facts and figures, the report concluded that a cut that would, by the Government’s initial estimates, cost £3 billion— the so-called static cost, excluding all behavioural changes— would cost only £100 million.
The trouble with the report is that, as everyone acknowledges, there are too many uncertain variables to be anywhere near sure that the figure of £100 million is even close to reality. The report was based on only one year’s worth of data relating to 2010-11. That is a significant weakness, since we know that some incomes were taken earlier to avoid the extra tax. Further detail is now available, including for the tax years of 2011-12 and 2012-13 when the 50p rate was still in place. The writers of the 2011 report did not have those data available, so their report is therefore lacking. That could be remedied were the Government to accept our amendment.
The report attempts to quantify behavioural change. The scale of behavioural change is primarily based on an assessment of taxable income elasticity—basically the extent to which taxable income changes when the tax rate changes. The IFS says that there is a margin of error within calculations for the 2011 report, and that staying within that margin of error one could easily say, depending on taxable income elasticity, that cutting the rate of tax could cost the Exchequer £700 million or could raise £600 million. That gives an idea of the range of figures we are talking about and of how uncertain such projections are.
I return to my central point: more data are now available and could help to calculate a truer picture of the yield of a 50p tax rate as opposed to a rate of 45p. If Conservative Members are so certain that their position on the abolition of the 50p rate is true, why will they not agree to the scrutiny that the amendment suggests?
Mr Gauke
I come back again to what the hon. Lady’s colleague, the shadow Chief Secretary, said from the Opposition Dispatch Box, when he referred to the 50p rate as
“a tax rate that would raise £3 billion”.—[Official Report, 5 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 849.]
Does she stand behind the statement that the 50p rate would raise £3 billion?
Shabana Mahmood
I was here for that debate and my hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary was recognising that the first thing we start with is the static costing. That is the only certain figure we have and that starts us off at £3 billion. We have, of course, to make an allowance for behavioural change and that will impact on the yield, but the calculation for how we get to understanding the behavioural change is the bone of contention between the Financial Secretary and me.
Mr Gauke
The hon. Lady is making a perfectly sensible point now, but it is a very different point to that made by the shadow Chief Secretary. He did not say, “The static cost is this, but then there is the behavioural cost” and so on. He said that it was
“a tax rate that would raise £3 billion”—[Official Report, 5 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 849.]
It sounds to me that the hon. Lady does not agree with that. She is not claiming that it would raise £3 billion. Is my interpretation of what she is saying correct?
Shabana Mahmood
My interpretation of what the Minister is saying is that he is making a valiant attempt at trying to create something out of nothing. As I said, I was here for that debate and I remember that exchange very well. The Financial Secretary and my hon. Friend the shadow Chief Secretary had a bit of to-ing and fro-ing over the static costing, but the rest of the debate and everything my hon. Friend said was absolutely clear. It has always been our position that we start with the static costing and that is not in doubt: it is £3 billion. The question then is: what happens when we allow for the impact of behavioural change? My contention—it has always been our contention; it is exactly what the shadow Chief Secretary said in his remarks in that debate on that day—is that the extent of behavioural change, as envisaged in the 2011 report, was based on an uncertain set of figures and that we have much more data now to be able to get to a certain point.
Shabana Mahmood
I am not going to give way again, because I have very little time. The Minister can pick the point up again in debate and I am sure he will do so.
It is not sufficient for Government Members simply to point at the increased yield following the rate cut to 45p and deem that their point has been proved. Just as people brought forward their incomes before the rate was introduced, so people held off taking income until the rate was lowered. We know the increase in yield at 45p was due primarily to record bonuses, which were up 80% in the year after the rate was reduced. If the truth is what is sought, then rigorous analysis is what is required. The blunt truth, however, is that the truth is not what is being sought here by the Government. The decision was taken for ideological reasons. There is no other justification. The abolition of the 50p rate was nothing other than a huge tax cut for the very richest, while ordinary families continued to struggle, and struggle for longer.
There is growth in the economy and that is welcome, but it has been a long time coming. It is ordinary families who have ended up paying the price. That is why we have continued to press home the point about the top rate of tax. While ordinary families are paying the price, we have let the very wealthiest in our country have a huge tax cut. That cannot be right. A top rate of tax at 50p will play an important role towards fair deficit reduction under the next Labour Government. If the Government have absolutely nothing to hide or fear in the facts and figures behind the cut from 50p to 45p, they should accept our amendment to clause 1.
Mr Gauke
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.
First, I shall say a word about the clauses in this group. Clause 1 provides the charge and sets the rates for income tax for 2015-16; clause 2 relates to limits and allowances; clause 3 sets the personal allowance for 2015-16 at £10,600; clause 4 relates to the basic rate limits; and clause 5 sets the personal allowance for 2016-17 at £10,800 and for 2017-18 at £11,000. That is a dramatic increase on the rate we inherited in 2010, when it was below £6,500, and makes good progress towards the target that my party and the Liberal Democrats have set of £12,500 by the end of the next Parliament.
Mr Gauke
None the less, under this Chancellor and this Government, we will stick to the long-term economic plan and avoid populist giveaways that could damage the public finances.
I could spend some time on these clauses—they are a significant achievement for the Government and I am delighted we are making further progress on increasing the personal allowance—but I shall deal with amendment 1, tabled by the Opposition. It is the annual debate we have on these matters; it is familiar to me and, I suspect, to you, Sir Roger. It proposes that the Government publish a report reviewing the impact of setting the additional rate at 50% within three months of passing the Bill. In addition, it asks for an assessment of
“the impact of setting the additional rate for 2015-16 at 45 per cent and 50 per cent on the amount of income tax currently paid by someone with a taxable income of…£150,000…and…£1,000,000 per year.”
To be credible, such an analysis would need to take behavioural impacts into account, like the HMRC report on the additional rate published at Budget 2012. Simply looking at theoretical income tax liabilities when increasing taxes is not enough. For perhaps the first time in a long time in these debates, we might have made a bit of progress in trying to understand Labour’s position. The HMRC report concluded that the underlying yield from the introduction of the 50p rate was much lower than originally forecast owing to large behavioural effects. It would be fair to say that when the 50p rate was introduced by the previous Government, they made allowances for behavioural effects. The question is whether it was sufficient.
When HMRC looked at this again, it was clear that the behavioural effect was greater than anticipated by the previous Government. Indeed, it is quite possible that it cost the Exchequer money. So let me take this opportunity to assure hon. Members once more that the Government already consider the impacts of any policy decisions taken, and they take the behavioural effects into account. The simple point is that the 50p rate was failing to raise the money anticipated.
Ian Swales
People find some of these behavioural effects hard to imagine. One of them, of course, was that under the previous Government somebody paying tax at that kind of rate could put £250,000 into a pension fund and save all the tax—£125,000. The maximum that can be saved now is £18,000.
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend raises an important point. There are a number of behavioural effects. Sometimes when we have this debate, there is a tendency for Opposition Members to say, “Ah, behavioural effects. You are just talking about tax avoidance.” Tax avoidance can be an element, but it can also be behaviour that is clearly compliant both with the letter and the spirit of the tax system yet will reduce yield. Increasing contributions to pension schemes, for example, could result in a reduction in revenue. It could be that somebody decides to relocate out of the United Kingdom. It could be—an important point that gets to the heart of why we reduced the tax— that international businesses in deciding where to locate staff might conclude that the costs of doing so in the UK are greater than elsewhere, and that there are better climates and environments in which to locate highly paid staff.
Those are some of the behavioural impacts that are a consequence of having an uncompetitive rate of income tax. That is one of the challenges that Governments have to face. To be fair, the previous Labour Government, for the vast majority of their time in office—this point has already been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales)—did not increase the 40p income tax rate. Tony Blair was very clear that in his view increasing the rate above 40p would be a mistake. We have taken the view that it was right to reduce the rate down to 45p, but the important question remains of what is the purpose of having a high rate of income tax. Is it to raise revenue or is it simply about sending a signal? If it is to raise revenue, we have to ask ourselves how much it will raise.
This is why I return to the comments—I cited them accurately and in context earlier—made by the shadow Chief Secretary on 5 November:
“We have a choice about a tax rate”—
he is clearly talking about the 50p rate—
“that would raise £3 billion, and it is important that we take that opportunity to tackle our deficit, rather than giving that money away to those people who are already in an extremely privileged position.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 849.]
He is talking about raising £3 billion. I pressed the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) on two or three occasions because she was making a different argument. She was saying that the static cost is £3 billion, and then it is a question of working out what the dynamic and behavioural effect will be so that we have a true and accurate position on how much this tax will raise. That is a perfectly reasonable point—it is not possible to disagree with the fact that there is a static number, but that is not terribly helpful in guiding us towards a sensible policy, because we have to know the behavioural effects. Let me be clear. The hon. Lady is clearly stepping away from the suggestion that this will raise £3 billion—
Shabana Mahmood
If the Minister was listening to my speech, he would know that I am asking for a report to give us a better idea of what this measure will raise—including all the data to hand from the additional years in which the rate was in place but not included in the 2011 HMRC report. All I can say to him on the figures is that the only certain figure we have is the £3 billion static cost. I accept that behavioural change will bring that down and decrease the yield, but neither he nor I can say, with hands on our holy books, that we know the exact number. That explains what I have asked for in the amendment. I believe this could be a revenue-raising measure to get the deficit down in a fairer way. The extent to which we can do that is the thrust of my amendment.
Mr Gauke
We are making further progress. The hon. Lady has now explicitly said that the 50p rate will not raise £3 billion. [Interruption.] She has explicitly said that, because she has accepted that there will be a behavioural effect that will bring the amount down. I do not know why she is complaining and chuntering, because she has just made the unarguable point that the amount raised will be less than the static cost. That is not the point that the shadow Chief Secretary was trying to make.
Labour politicians are generally very good at saying, “It is a £3 billion giveaway”, in an attempt to give the impression that it will be a £3 billion increase in revenue. I accept that the shadow Chief Secretary probably misspoke, and that when he said that the 50p rate would raise £3 billion, he was getting a little carried away. Labour politicians usually avoid saying, “It will raise £3 billion”, for the very good reason that that is a completely unsupportable position. To be fair to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, she is not making that case today. However, I wish to point out that even the Labour party does not believe that the 50p rate will raise £3 billion, which it clearly will not.
Andrew Gwynne
I appreciate that we are five and a half weeks from a general election, so we can exchange party-political knockabout. Having said that, I would politely say to the Minister that the point he is making—very eloquently, I must say, if I am being fair to him—is precisely the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood). There is a degree of uncertainty. Is that not exactly why he should support the amendment?
Ian Swales
I thank the Minister for giving way again. He is being very generous with his time.
As assessment has been made by an independent group, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which came up with a figure of about £100 million. Labour Members have used the word “exact”. Does the Minister reject the idea that the amount can ever be estimated exactly, partly because of the behavioural factors to which he referred a few minutes ago?
Mr Gauke
That is a very good point, which leads me to the two quotations that I was about to give. Paul Johnson, the head of the IFS, said in a paper that was published on 27 January 2014:
“The best available estimate of what reversing the cut would raise is therefore about £100 million too.”
He also said that
“the best evidence we have still suggests that raising the top rate of tax would raise little revenue and make, at best, a marginal contribution to reducing the budget deficit an incoming government would face after the next election.”
Fiona O’Donnell
I thank the Minister for his generosity in giving way again. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the Government’s plans for tax cuts by 2020 would cost £7.2 billion. Can he tell us where that money would come from?
Mr Gauke
We have a record of increasing the personal allowance. This is a very good time to make that point, as we are debating, among other things, clauses 1 to 5, under which the personal allowance will move up to £11,000 during the next few years. We have a record of being able to deliver big increases in the allowance, and that is what we will do.
Let me now press on. The economic recovery is well under way, and last year Britain grew faster than any other major advanced economy in the world. The Government will not consider any action that would put the United Kingdom’s recovery at risk. While the additional rate has been reduced to ensure that the UK remains internationally competitive, the Government’s policy is to repeatedly increase the tax contribution of the wealthy. The share of income tax paid by the top 1% of taxpayers is projected to rise from 25.1% in 2010-11 to 27.3% in 2014-15, which means that they are expected to pay a greater share of income tax in 2014-15 than in any year under the last Government.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that goes to the nub of the issue today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood eloquently set out from the Opposition Front Bench, the numbers are clear. In respect of corporation tax, we are talking about a very small number of large businesses operating across the country. The benefits of that tax cut will not necessarily be felt throughout the wider economy. I would argue—I know my hon. Friend makes the same argument—that targeting the same amount of money on a business rate cut for the first year and a freeze for the second year is much smarter, because it would affect 5.1 million small and medium-sized businesses and others. That is the right thing to do for the struggling high street.
I therefore urge the Minister to consider very seriously what the Labour Front-Bench team is asking for. We are not asking him to implement Labour party policy, as much as I would like him to, and we are not asking him to freeze business rates or to cut them. We are asking him to conduct a review so that we can have a proper debate on whether his approach of cutting corporation tax is the right one, or whether, as we argue and believe, cutting and then freezing business rates is a much smarter way of using the same amount of money, as it would create a bigger boost for the economies of towns, villages and cities across the country.
I want to add one note of caution. I am very supportive of the devolution agenda in England. As a Greater Manchester MP, Members would expect me to say that I very much support the efforts by the Greater Manchester combined authority and the 10 local authorities—eight are Labour, one is Conservative and one is Liberal Democrat controlled—and recognise the benefits of the conurbation working together. The Government’s announcement included the retention of additional business rates from growth, but I urge caution. I support the proposal, but we have to approach it on a conurbation, city region and county region basis. Growth areas in cities and counties are often located in particular geographical areas, whereas needs are spread across whole areas. With that, I urge the Minister to accept Labour’s amendment, which requires nothing more than a report that I think would back our plans 100%.
Mr Gauke
First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), who spoke in this debate as he has done in so many Finance Bill debates over the past five years. He has always provided a voice of calmness and sanity. I have not agreed with everything he has said, but he has mostly made helpful contributions, and thoughtfulness is a consistent characteristic of those contributions.
The corporation tax rate is set in legislation a year in advance on an annual basis. Clause 6 sets the corporation tax rate and charge for the financial year beginning on 1 April 2016. The House will be aware that in 2013 legislation was passed cutting the main rate of corporation tax from 21% to 20% for the 2015 financial year. The cut will take effect in seven days and give the UK by far the lowest rate in the G7 and the joint lowest rate in the G20. The clause confirms that the rate will remain at 20% in 2016.
The Government have made it clear that we want a business tax regime that is competitive and fair, and since 2010 we have made clear strides towards that goal. The main rate of corporation tax was 28%. We have cut it by almost a third to make the UK more competitive and to support growth and investment. At the same time, we have taken significant measures to clamp down on tax avoidance, and on Second Reading we debated the diverted profits tax introduced by the Bill.
Low corporation taxes enable businesses to increase investment, take on new staff, increase wages or reduce prices. Overall, the corporation tax cuts we have delivered since 2010 will save businesses £10 billion a year from 2016. To give Members a sense of scale, that is the equivalent of giving businesses enough money to hire 270,000 new employees. Oxford university’s centre for business taxation estimates that our reduction in the corporate tax burden will increase business investment by £11 billion; and as well as supporting businesses already operating in the UK, lower rates of corporation tax make the UK more attractive to international businesses. Last year, UK Trade & Investment reported a record number of inward investment projects that led to the creation of 66,000 new jobs and safeguarded 45,000 more.
The corporation tax cuts and other reforms, such as the introduction of the patent box, have completely changed perceptions of the UK tax regime. Five years ago, businesses were leaving the UK because of our tax regime. That regime has now become an asset that attracts firms to the UK. In surveys, the UK is now regularly cited as one of the most competitive regimes in the world. The clause embeds the message that the UK is open for business by affirming that the UK rate will remain at the record low of 20% in 2016.
The Opposition amendment proposes a review of the impact of a 1% cut to the main rate of corporation tax for the financial year 2016. A great deal is already known about the impact of corporation tax policy. We know that lower rates encourage growth and investment, and that stable and simple taxes give businesses confidence to invest and expand. The clause refers only to a single rate because we have already legislated to unify the main rate and small profits rate of corporation tax and to scrap the complex marginal relief system for all companies, except those with ring-fenced profits.
These changes will take effect next week and give the UK for the first time a single headline rate of corporation tax and provide administrative savings for a huge number of businesses, particularly the nearly 50,000 companies that pay the marginal rate of corporation tax each year. The move was recommended by the Office of Tax Simplification, and I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Michael Jack, John Whiting and the team for all the work they have done since we introduced the OTS at the start of this Parliament. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has also been supportive of our reforms. In a recent report, it said:
“The simplification of moving to a single rate of corporation tax…is a real achievement of the coalition government’s tax policy, and it is one that should not be reversed.”
The evidence on corporation tax is clear: low rates and a simple system support business and support growth. In our view, the proposed review would provide little benefit, so we are not minded to accept the amendment.
As far as business rates are concerned, the Government recognise that they represent a fixed cost for businesses. That is why during this Parliament we have continued to double the small business rate relief schemes, supporting 575,000 businesses, of which 385,000 pay no rates at all. We have capped the inflation-linked increase in the business rates multiplier at 2% for two years, and we have provided a £1,000 retail discount this year, rising to £1,500 next year for small shops, pubs, cafés and restaurants, supporting the high street.
Labour said it would cut business rates by 1% for lower-value properties in 2015-16. Under its plan, the smallest single properties would pay more. A property with a rateable value of £5,000 saves £1,165 under this Government compared with the Opposition’s proposals. The high street would also lose out. A shop with a rateable value of £30,000 saves £1,080 under this Government when compared with the original proposals. We have published terms of reference for a wide-ranging ambitious review of Budget business rates to report back to the Government. That is, of course, on top of what we have done on fuel duty, which helps small businesses, and the employment allowance, which does the same.
In conclusion, cutting corporation tax has been a central part of our economic strategy—a strategy that is working. In 2014, growth in the UK outstripped that of every other G7 country. Employment is at record levels, business investment is growing rapidly, and this clause ensures that the rate of corporation tax for 2016-17 will remain at 20%—an extremely competitive rate and a foundation of tax system designed to support growth and investment. Reversing the progress we have made would be a big mistake and send a terrible signal to businesses around the world. That is why I believe the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Question put, That the amendment be made.