Universal Credit

Debate between Lord Sharma and Shabana Mahmood

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I will not.

It is not unusual for Government programmes to run into trouble. I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee and it is our bread-and-butter work every week to look at Government programmes that run into difficulties. A Government who cared about a programme —one that is not a vehicle for cuts and is not designed to force people to have less money than the system it is replacing—would actually engage properly and genuinely to learn lessons and make the programme better. Instead, the Government said that talk of cuts was somehow fake news. The Secretary of State then had to admit that people are going to be worse off. We have heard the figures of £200 a month and £2,400 a year being mooted. That is a staggering sum of money to lose every year for the working poor and the vulnerable in our community. We know that the self-employed will potentially be up to £2,500 a year worse off compared with those who are not self-employed under the new system. These are the realities that the Government cannot deny. That is not fake news; that is just the truth.

The Government and the DWP said to the National Audit Office—this was recorded in its most recent report—that the organisations at the coalface of helping our constituents to deal with the troubles they face because of universal credit, whether the Trussell Trust, other people who run food banks or local government, which is now facing much higher levels of rent arrears than previously, are motivated by a desire to lobby for changes rather than accurately reflect what is happening on the ground. That is a disgraceful attitude for the Department to take towards organisations that, yes, may well have a different vision for how they think the social security system should work, but are absolutely telling the truth about the destitution and difficulties our constituents are facing.

I invite the Secretary of State and any of her Ministers to come and spend a day in my constituency office and to see the explosion in our case load that has been created by the roll-out of universal credit. My staff spend most of their time every single day on the phone trying to sort out difficulties arising from universal credit. I shall highlight just two cases we have had recently, the first regarding delayed payments. The Government say they are taking action on that, but I have a constituent who has not received any money since 12 July. He has no money for food, fuel or anything. I invite the Secretary of State to intervene and tell me what I should tell him about where he should get some money to try to survive while his universal credit is being sorted out.

[The Minister for Employment (Alok Sharma)]

I thank the hon. Lady for taking an intervention. What I say to her, and I have said this before in the House, is that if there are individual cases Members should bring them directly to Ministers. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but that is not what happens. What we hear are general comments. After this debate, if she is willing, I will talk to her directly about the cases that are affecting her constituents.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I wish it was just one case. I would happily bring them all to the Minister and he can tell me how I should respond to my constituents, but my experience of engaging with the Department on this matter is not a happy one. If he wants to become the constituency caseworker for the whole of the House for universal credit cases, he will be a very busy man. In fact, it would be easier for him to improve the system and fund it properly so that people are not forced into destitution in the first place.

There is a particular difficulty in my constituency relating to constituents with autism and other mental health conditions moving on to universal credit, often because they have failed the assessment—they had previously been in receipt of employment and support allowance—having not been supported as they tried to navigate a very complicated online system. The support that is available is simply not enough. I invite the Government and the Minister, in that spirit, to revisit some of those issues, because they are not ones that he will be hearing from me for the first time.

In this context, it beggars belief that the Government wish to continue with managed migration. There is only one fair, humane and compassionate thing that they could do for all the people facing difficulty under the system: stop the roll-out and try to genuinely engage and fix the problems of universal credit right now, before they move on. Most importantly, however, they need to fund it properly, because this is a vehicle for cuts—they know it, we all know it, and our constituents are paying the price for it.

Stamp Duty Land Tax Bill

Debate between Lord Sharma and Shabana Mahmood

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady and her party welcome measures that are intended to help people who aspire to own their homes. How does she think this policy contrasts with a policy of an annual property tax which may force some people out of their homes if they have to pay it?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I think that the Bill shows that the Government have accepted that properties with a very high value are under-taxed. The hon. Gentleman alluded to our proposals for a mansion tax, which would help to pay for our NHS commitments. Our measures will not force anyone out of their homes, because, as we have pointed out, a deferment option will be available to basic-rate payers. I am afraid that that was a bit of party political scaremongering on the hon. Gentleman’s part.

[Alok Sharma]

The hon. Lady mentioned the mansion tax. My constituents fear that the threshold might start at, say, £2 million, and then drop very quickly to levels applying to properties that ordinary hard-working taxpayers are aspiring to own. The Labour party has done that in the past. Will the hon. Lady tell us what would be the threshold for her so-called mansion tax?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity to tell his constituents that their fears are entirely misplaced. Anyone who publishes literature suggesting that the threshold will lower is doing nothing more than scaremongering. As we have made clear, the number of high-value properties will not increase, because the indexation of the threshold will be in line with the average rise in value for the highest-value properties. That means that the number of properties caught by the tax is not expected to increase. I am, as I say, delighted that the hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity to reassure people who are currently living in properties that are below the £2 million threshold that they will not be caught by our proposed mansion tax.

The Minister explained that the changes in the Bill would not apply to commercial property, and I am grateful for his clarification of the Government’s thinking. However, I should like to press him a little further on a couple of matters. First, one of the reasons why the Government were so keen to proceed with stamp duty changes applying to residential property was their anxiety about labour mobility. Has any thought been given to the impact on business mobility of maintaining the slab structure for commercial property transactions?

Secondly, changes will come into effect later this year in Scotland, where stamp duty is now a devolved matter. The Scottish Government will introduce a land and buildings transaction tax, which will apply to both residential and commercial properties. Have the Minister and the Treasury considered whether there is a risk that England might be disadvantaged, particularly in relation to business mobility? Does the Minister agree that the differential in the treatment of commercial property in Scotland and England is not ideal, and is the Treasury taking account of that aspect of the changes?

Finally, I want to raise a point that has been highlighted by the Chartered Institute of Taxation. It noted the different treatment given to definitions of residential dwellings, and observed that clause 1(3) inserts new subsection 1B:

“If the relevant land consists entirely of residential property and the transaction is not one of a number of linked transactions, the amount of tax chargeable is”,

and so on. The CIOT notes that various amendments to the tax system, including the introduction of the annual tax on enveloped dwellings, or ATED, have led to subtly different definitions of “residential” property for the purposes of SDLT. In schedule 29A to the Finance Act 2004 there is different treatment for investment-regulated pensions and potentially for capital gains tax, capital gains tax-related ATED, business investment relief for non-domiciliaries, capital allowances and VAT.

The Minister and I have had a number of debates when discussing other Bills about the different treatment given to particular phrases in employment law as against taxation law. There seems to be a nuanced difference in the way residential dwellings will be identified in these different elements of different taxes. I am concerned that inconsistencies are creeping in, which lead to complexity and create more work for lawyers. They will welcome that, of course, but ordinary taxpayers will not. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us his comments on those differences in definitions and say whether the Government are considering clarifying that.