Autumn Statement

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

What I can confirm to the hon. Lady is that a year ago they were predicted to fall by 3.7%, and now the OBR says that they will increase this year by 2.5%.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

The people of Blaby and Glen Parva were listening attentively to the Chancellor’s welcome statement. They will go to the polls on 21 December for two by-elections, a county council and a ward by-election. What positive message has the Chancellor for the residents, the businesses, the pensioners and all the people of working age in Blaby and Glen Parva about his welcome financial statement?

[Jeremy Hunt]

What I would say to the businesses in Blaby and Glen Prva is that for every single small business we have frozen business rates, and we are rolling over a 75% discount on business rates for every pub, restaurant and high-street shop for another year. We want to do everything possible to back small businesses, because they are the lifeblood of our communities.

Autumn Statement

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

Yes, the United States is raising taxes by $800 billion.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Chancellor, you have agreed to meet me and other Leicestershire colleagues to discuss the worrying situation that Leicestershire County Council has been facing for years when it comes to its financing. While I greatly welcome your autumn statement today—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

His autumn statement.

[Alberto Costa]

While I greatly welcome his autumn statement, will the Chancellor tell the House today—and, indeed, those at Leicestershire County Council, who are listening to proceedings—how his autumn statement will help them with their finances?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I have talked to my hon. Friend on a number of occasions about the problems with Leicestershire County Council’s financial situation. What all councils say is that the biggest pressure on their budgets is adult social care, and I think today’s announcement will be welcomed by them for that reason. However, I am very aware of the particular issues in Leicestershire, and I am happy to keep engaging with him on them.

The Growth Plan

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

It is not about dogma and deregulation. In fact, I campaigned for the eco and energy efficiency measures when I was Business Secretary and ensured that there was reference in the growth plan to the eco plan. We may well expand that at a future date.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Nuclear power must form part of a diversified energy portfolio. I welcome the measures the Chancellor has announced today, particularly accelerating energy infrastructure. Will he say a few words on whether his welcome package includes accelerating modular nuclear reactors, which are the future of the nuclear industry?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I was very focused on small modular reactor production when I was BEIS Secretary, as my hon. Friend knows, and I want to bring the thinking about that into the heart of the Treasury. There are still negotiations to be had, but he is absolutely right that SMRs and nuclear are part of our energy mix in the future.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Alberto Costa Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for alluding to his experience in local government. I would simply say that there is a lot that good local authorities can do and have done already to ensure that they focus on value for money, but of course there is more that can be done. We need only look at the enormous potential for digitisation, property disposals and addressing back-office costs and sharing them with other local authorities. There is lots of innovation that can and should be done and there are good local authorities up and down the country that are doing that.

I will resume where I left off by addressing the fact that the Government cannot and must not shy away from difficult decisions, which is why the health and social care levy that we announced last year will remain in place, because it is only right to safeguard a dedicated source of funding for our NHS and for those who need care throughout their lives. As the Chancellor pointed out yesterday, a long-term funding solution for the NHS and social care is not incompatible with reducing the tax burden on working families, which brings me to the specifics of the Bill—an integral part of the Chancellor’s tax plan.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

We are here to discuss the national insurance contributions increase. The national insurance personal threshold will rise from £9,500 to £12,570 from July. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that that is the largest increase in a starting personal tax threshold in British history? As the largest single personal tax cut in a decade, is that not the evidence that the Opposition need that the Government really want to help workers across the whole United Kingdom?

[Mr Clarke]

I can give my hon. Friend that confirmation. I will expand on that later, because it is a major signal of intent at a time when our fiscal headroom is limited that we are determined that, where it is possible to help people, we will do so as effectively and dramatically as possible. The Bill is certainly a major step on that journey.

The Bill legislates for the two employee and self-employed NIC measures that the Chancellor set out yesterday. I will begin by giving some context behind those changes. It has long been the Government’s ambition to promote tax cuts for working people and to simplify the overarching system, which is why, since 2010, a series of Conservative Governments have taken millions of people out of income tax by raising the personal allowance from £6,500 to its new level of £12,570.

As the Chancellor explained yesterday, however, the equivalent NI threshold remained about £3,000 lower. As a result, at the last general election, the Prime Minister pledged to increase the national insurance threshold, and that is why, in 2020, we took a major step forward by increasing it to £9,500. This is a Conservative Government who are cutting taxes and delivering on our pledges to the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Murray]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have debated the increase in national insurance at length, and today we are debating the package of measures that the Chancellor brought forward. Overnight analysis by the Resolution Foundation, which he would do well to consult, recognises that seven in eight workers will pay more in tax and national insurance in 2024-25, as a result of decisions taken by this Chancellor and this Government.

[Alberto Costa]

At the outset of his speech, the hon. Gentleman criticised the Chancellor for being a tax cutter, yet he is now critical because the tax burden has increased. He has not yet answered the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies), so perhaps he can have a second go.

[James Murray]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are critical of the Chancellor for his desperate attempts to appear to be a tax cutter, despite the fact that the tax burden in this country is now at its highest in 70 years. [Interruption.] Let me make some progress. It is clear that the increase in national insurance proposed by the Health and Social Care Levy Bill last year was wrong, not only because we said it was, but because the Government’s own analysis concluded it was wrong. I am sure that at the time Ministers read their own tax information and impact note, which was signed off personally by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. That note applied the so-called family test to this levy, and concluded:

“There may be an impact on family formation, stability or breakdown as individuals, who are currently just about managing financially, will see their disposable income reduce.”

As the current Financial Secretary to the Treasury will know, I have tabled several written questions, asking the Government to publish the complete family test assessment prepared for the levy. Her most recent response stated:

“Family Test assessments are not routinely published. Decisions on whether and how to publish complete Family Test assessments fall within the responsibility of each Government Department. HMRC have no further plans to publish a Family Test assessment on the Health and Social Care Levy.”

When she responds, I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that she will now instruct HMRC to publish that family test assessment. If she refuses to do so, I would be grateful if she explained why she is blocking its publication.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Murray]

I repeat a principle I mentioned earlier to the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly): the remit of the Bill is national insurance and related matters, such as the spring statement yesterday. I will continue to focus my remarks on those.

The windfall tax that we have been pushing the Chancellor to adopt would fund support for people who need help with their energy bills now. As we have long said, alongside that immediate help we urgently need more investment in alternative sources of energy and insulation for our homes. That investment would help to cut energy bills in the longer run, as well as improving our energy independence and security. Yet on that front, the Chancellor has been all but silent, too.

Yesterday, the Chancellor announced a cut in VAT for energy-saving materials, but I do not think anyone believes that that is anywhere near enough to help the majority of families upgrade their homes. Our pledge, by contrast, is to invest £6 billion each year for 10 years to upgrade 19 million homes. That would cut energy bills by up to £400 a year while cutting gas imports by 15% too. That is the kind of transformational programme that our country needs.

[Alberto Costa]

Would it not have been better for the Labour Administration to have approved new nuclear power stations? We would not be in this mess today had it not been for Labour’s failures in the past.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), whose speech I very much enjoyed? I hear the paeans to the Conservatives being the party of freedom and low taxes, so it will no doubt come as a shock to him that the Office for Budget Responsibility wrote yesterday that taxes will rise to their highest level as a share of national income

“since the late 1940s under Clement Attlee’s post-war Government.”

I know that the Conservatives love to compare themselves with previous Labour Governments, but I was not aware that they intended to compare themselves with that one. The big difference is that under Clement Attlee’s post-war Government, nobody could be in any doubt about the intention to raise living standards for all and to share the burden equitably. [Interruption.] I hear the comment, “The big difference was a pandemic”, but there was a big difference because of world war two as well, hence the “post-war” bit. However, I will gladly take an intervention once I have made a bit of progress.

The Scottish National party welcomes the Bill insofar as it goes. We are clearly in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. Inflation is spiralling and is set to hit 8.7% later this year. Some of that is common to industrialised economies around the world, but let us be perfectly frank that other elements of it are entirely self-inflicted because of the Government’s choices. That resonates through people’s pocket books, with the OBR forecasting the sharpest fall in real earnings since the 1970s and the biggest hit to real household disposable income since records began in the 1950s. That is certainly not a record to be proud of.

The Chancellor had a golden opportunity yesterday to do something to ease the pressure on hard-working individuals and families, to help those on benefits and to give much-needed respite to businesses trying to trade their way back to health and prosperity. The circumstances were as auspicious as they ever could be. The Chancellor had headroom of approximately £30 billion that he could have worked within, as a consequence of increased tax revenues through fiscal drag and because of borrowing undershooting the forecast levels. There was the potential to make a significant difference for those who were feeling the pinch the greatest.

And what did we get? In the face of a 30p-a-litre rise in costs at the petrol and diesel pumps, there was a 5p cut in fuel duty, which barely takes the cost at the forecourts back to where the prices were last week. That offers no respite to the motorist or consumer or, indeed, to all of us, given that we are all affected by the price of goods that are transported on lorries or vans to the shops. Despite an admission that research and development funding was not having the effect that it ought to in driving growth, we had a promise just to spread that ever more thinly rather than focusing on where it could have the greatest effect.

On energy costs, we had a VAT cut on energy efficiency products, although, frankly, the mind boggles at how someone who is struggling to pay their existing utility bills will somehow find the money—VAT or not—to install solar panels, heat pumps or anything else that might be covered. We had the frankly paltry increase in the household support fund from £500 million to £1 billion. That is just one fifth of the impact of the 5p cut in fuel duty.

The blunt reality is that anyone who woke up yesterday morning worrying about how they would pay their energy bills will have woken up this morning confronted by exactly the same set of worries.

[Alberto Costa]

The SNP has been in uninterrupted governance of Scotland since 2007. During those 15 very long years, that nationalist Government have had many levers at their disposal relating to taxation regime relief and grants and other funds. Why have they not used those levers to assist people in Scotland, and why are SNP Members such as him instead complaining in this House about the UK Government’s moves?

[Richard Thomson]

I presume that the hon. Member is a supporter of the present constitutional set-up. I know that he sought election in Scotland before finding his present constituency, and in view of that he ought to be aware that only some powers are devolved, and the Scottish Government have limited fiscal powers. Those powers that they do have, however, they have used effectively. They have reduced taxes for about 54% of workers, and have also introduced benefits such as the Scottish child payment, which is doubling. They have used the limited powers at their disposal judiciously. If the hon. Member is patient, I may accept a further intervention from him when I come to other aspects of the deficiencies in that fiscal settlement.

Andrey Lugvoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2020

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 General Committees

[John Glen]

The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that those matters are broader than what we are discussing this afternoon. I certainly recognise the Government’s commitment to legislating in this area, and I know that the matter is under urgent consideration. I cannot offer any more comments on that at this point in time.

The prevalence of the use of unexplained wealth orders is an operational matter that I am not able to comment on. I am aware from previous conversations in the House, possibly with the hon. Gentleman, about the frustration that exists in this area, part of which is about establishing a precedent and a legal basis of confidence for moving forward with those matters, but I am not able to offer him more on that at this point.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

I have a specific technical point. I would appreciate it if the Minister gave it consideration and perhaps wrote to me afterwards. As a lawyer who has read the schedule referring to legal professional privilege, I think it right that legal professional privilege should remain protected—that is, the privilege under paragraph 4, referring to counsel, barristers or solicitors, or to the confidentiality of communications, as it is known in Scotland. However, there is a little bit of confusion in paragraph 5(2), which adds, cryptically:

“Information and documentation is privileged if the person asked to provide or produce it would be entitled to refuse to do so on grounds of legal professional privilege”.

There is ongoing debate in the courts, both in Scotland and in England and Wales, about who can claim legal professional privilege. I am thinking of those regulated under the Solicitors Regulation Authority and others under the Legal Services Act 2007. Could the Minister write to us to confirm that this only applies to authorised persons in England and Wales—namely solicitors and barristers, and to solicitors and advocates in Scotland?

[John Glen]

I am certainly very happy to look at that matter and write to my hon. Friend with clarification as soon as possible.

I have responded to the questions as best I can; I recognise that I have not given total satisfaction to everyone, but I hope that the reason and rationale for this order are clear. The Treasury continues to believe that the conditions set out in the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 for making this order remain satisfied, and I commend the order to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.