Budget Resolutions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I think the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) was saying thank you for the extra £4.5 billion that will come to Scotland as a consequence of the Budget. I think he was also probably saying thank you for the eight allocations of UK-wide growth funds, with bids in Scotland between Aberdeen and Glasgow.

When the right hon. Gentleman talks about the support for his party, the SNP, in the polls, I am not sure whether his memory goes back to June 2017, when the SNP in Scotland got less than 37% of the vote, way behind the 44% that the Tories got across the country as a whole.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to say, through you, to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister: thank you for the content, thank you for the delivery and thank you for the hope that things will go on getting better in the future. We need to have the resilience to face the unknown problems that will come, but we also need to face the known problems now. I think the whole House will agree—certainly given the reaction from the Labour Benches during some of the announcements, including on universal credit—that the Chancellor has found an imaginative way of giving help to people before the end of the year. I think that there will be a great deal of approval for that.

I would like to say something in tribute to Frank Field, who spent a long time working on child benefits. As and when there is extra money for children, I would give it through child benefit. I would not give it through the extra provision of services all the time, because parents would like to make their own choices. I believe in expanding holiday provision and activities, but I do not think that a child taking all their meals outside the home outside of term time is a good idea. Families should be able to look after themselves, and they need the resources to be able to do that.

I do not want to speak at length because of the time that has been taken up by the leader of the SNP, although he is often worth listening to.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I will not at the moment.

The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) spoke for the Opposition, and I thank her for her speech, but it was not absolutely clear whether that speech had been drafted for the Leader of the Opposition or for herself. I felt that there should have been some spaces left in it so that she could pick up on what the Chancellor actually said. It seems to me that the Chancellor has been criticised for the opposite of some of the provisions he read out to the House.

I welcome the extra attention to the first 1,001 days. The earliest stages of life, and of parents preparing to have a child, matter, whether it is health, economic security or housing.

I thank the Chancellor for his commitment to returning to spending 0.7% of gross national income on overseas aid. I hope he will be able to announce that the spending will not suddenly go from 0.5% to 0.7% in two years’ time but will move from 0.5%—if we have got down that far, and I hope we have not—up to 0.6%, 0.65% and then 0.7%. It is ludicrous to think that we can suddenly pile an extra 40% into a programme and expect it to be used effectively, so please try to plan ahead.

My right hon. Friend spoke about the cladding money, and he and the Prime Minister must have a top-level forum with the cladding groups, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform to get an understanding that leaseholders, people at the beginning of their household life, are faced with bills of £20,000 and sometimes £100,000, which they cannot afford. Some people are having their equity wiped out when their flats are forfeited because they cannot afford to pay these charges. We need to find the problems, fix the problems and fund the problems, and then we need to get the money back.

As part of the £5 billion, I ask that potential claims on behalf of leaseholders, which might have to be made by landlords, can be made by an agency that has the power to go to the builders, developers, surveyors, architects and building control people, some of whom are the Government’s people although most are not, and their insurance companies. In time, the money has to come back from those who are responsible. The one group we know are not responsible are the leaseholders who do not own a single brick of the building.

As a life member of the Campaign for Real Ale, I thank the Chancellor for what he has done on the draught beer tax. In Worthing, which has a good reputation for hospitality, the business rates relief will be greatly welcomed by 90% of businesses. Some people think of Worthing as a place that is not only represented by a mature MP but has a lot of mature people. They are wise people.

We have had one of the youngest mayors and council leaders in the country. As Dan Humphreys prepares to stand down after six and a half years, I thank him for doing the kinds of things that the Government are trying to do. He has increased digital capability, sought regeneration funds that work, worked and shared offices with other councils to get the best value for money and provided the kind of leadership and quiet, undramatic provision of local services that gives local government a good reputation.

If my right hon. Friend the Chancellor can continue doing sensible things that get support from both sides of the House, as he has today, we will be glad that he has joined that company, too.

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[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the Father of the House.

This Budget could be described as a pork barrel Budget. The Chancellor talked about a beer barrel Budget, and I have yet to look at the detail of the beer duty, but small breweries in my constituency will be grateful for that measure. That is my thank you to the Chancellor.

The Budget has pulled rabbits out of hats, and there has been a lot of smoke and mirrors. When we look at the detail of the funding, as we do on the Public Accounts Committee, we can see the holes in this Swiss cheese Budget. We have again had the mantra of levelling up, but there is no acknowledgement of the reality of the lives of many of my constituents who will not qualify for levelling up, by the Chancellor’s definition, because of where they live. Of course we are still waiting for the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to define what “levelling up” means.

I have many constituents living in overcrowded housing with one family living in the living room and another family living in the bedroom. They are not street homeless and they are not living in temporary accommodation, although I have plenty of those too, yet there is nothing in the Budget for them on housing. The cost of living is hitting all our constituents very hard, and it is clear that this Budget will not tackle a lot of those problems for a lot of people, many of whom will be made poorer as a result of these decisions.

Of course, the Chancellor has announced £150 billion for Departments this year. We have to be wary of such global figures. It sounds like a lot of money, but it is dwarfed by the spending on covid. Compare that with the steady state of the NHS budget pre-covid, which was about £150 billion, and with the £37 billion allocated over two years to test and trace. I have to wonder where the Government’s priorities are.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank my hon. Friend for the Public Accounts Committee’s report on the spending of NHS Test and Trace. It is 20% of the NHS budget, yet the money was spent in such a way that how effective it was in meeting the main purpose could not be demonstrated. Taxpayers’ money was treated like an ATM. Does she agree that if we are to spend such money, it needs to be spent wisely and properly?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I hope the Chancellor does, too. I hope the Treasury is acknowledging the lessons that have been learned. We were very tolerant on the Public Accounts Committee, as we understood that spending in those early days would be challenging and money might be spent in the wrong way. The ventilator challenge, for example, means we now have ventilators that will not be used, but it was the right thing to do at the time because that is what the Government thought they needed, and any Minister in that position would have considered making such decisions.

Test and trace is one example where money kept following money without clear outcomes, without clear challenge and without a clear approach to spending taxpayers’ money. These are eyewatering sums. When we think of the NHS backlog, there have obviously been pre-announcements on NHS funding, but there is still so much work to be done to make sure that patients get the treatment they need. The money spent on test and trace could have been much better spent on the backlog.

Once again, we have heard very little about the detail of housing policy. The Government have promised to build 1 million homes over this Parliament, a statement that the Chancellor repeated. There had been a promise of 300,000 homes a year, so the figure is shifting. One hopes it means that the homes will be built eventually, but the Red Book confirms that, of the £11.5 billion that has already been allocated, £7 billion or so is owed from the spending review onward. That is enough to deliver 180,000 affordable homes, and we can add the 160,000 homes being built through mayoral combined authority and local authority funding. We are still getting very low figures.

The affordability of affordable housing, of course, depends on a person’s income. In my constituency, people in receipt of housing benefit, including housing benefit through universal credit, cannot rent a three or four-bedroom property because the rents are above the cap. That is just the market in Hackney South and Shoreditch and across the borough. It is impossible to buy. More people rent privately than own their own home, and more people rent social housing than both of those combined. Those in generation rent and those who cannot get on the waiting list for social housing are left in limbo. They are left out in the cold. Where is the levelling-up agenda for them?

The Father of the House mentioned the terrible issue of dangerous cladding on tower blocks, and this Budget only reconfirms the existing £5 billion set aside for remediation. This is the biggest consumer and regulatory failure in a generation, and many of my constituents, like many people across the country, are living in unsaleable homes. I should declare my interest, as I live in one, too, although my developer has shouldered the entire cost. As the Father of the House said, we need more developers to take that on.

The £5 billion is about a third of what is needed to sort it out. I am the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, so I do not want to see money given out willy-nilly, but if the remediation is not funded now, there will be no confidence in the sector to get started. Even as somebody who lives in a property surrounded by scaffolding right now, and as an early adopter because the developer paid, it will take many years before the remediation is delivered. For those who have not got to that point, we are talking about well over a decade before this problem will be solved. It is about certainty of funding from the Government. As the Father of the House said, there are ways of getting this money back from developers. We need to be more imaginative. I challenge the Chancellor to work with his Cabinet colleagues on that.

There was some mention of street homelessness in the Budget. Getting “Everybody In” was a covid success story; let us not squander that opportunity for the lack of a bit of funding now. The money to make sure that people get into the 6,000 new homes that are supposed to be provided for people who are sleeping rough on the streets needs to be delivered. If it is not and they go back on the streets, it will end up costing the taxpayer and the Exchequer considerably more. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—I hope I have got the new title right—has been slow to confirm the figures on progress, so it is right that the Treasury should keep an eye on how the money going into that Department is spent and on whether it will actually deliver those homes, which will, as I say, save the taxpayer money in the end.

I could speak at length about the cost-of-living issue but, given the time, I shall touch only on the main issue. Universal credit has been cut by £20. I welcome the offer to revise the taper, but it will affect only those who are in work and rather plays into a negative narrative that some people are scrounging off the state. People have lost their jobs during the covid pandemic. People have struggled to get back into work, despite the situation not being as bad as some had predicted. On top of that, we see fuel prices increasing, energy bills going through the roof and inflation. That £20 a week is still a real issue for people.

According to the Red Book there will be a 3% real-terms increase in local government funding over the spending review period, but that comes on the back of cuts of up to 40% or more in some boroughs over the past decade. Since 2019, we have seen an increase year-on-year, but 2019 is only two years ago; let us not forget the deep and swingeing cuts to local government, which has proved itself an effective deliverer of vital services during covid but cannot be squeezed further. We are still nowhere near to the previous levels of funding.

On school funding, there is another smoke-and-mirrors promise. Again, increases are talked about, but after years of cuts. Per-pupil funding is still way lower than it was in 2010 and we are only inching back up to that level. A Public Accounts Committee report showed that the per-pupil increase is lower for pupils in the most-deprived areas and much higher for those in the least-deprived areas, thereby widening the gap in funding. The gap in attainment between the least-deprived and the most-deprived was narrowing, but we now see it growing as a result of covid. This is not the time to cut funding, or to reduce funding even if it is not seen as a cut. It is clever how the Government try to present it, but let us be clear that in effect we are talking about a cut to the poorest, with money going to the wealthier pupils.

The Government have also promised a £30,000-a-year salary for teachers; as far as I can see, having read the Red Book quickly, there is not enough in the settlement for schools to pay for that even if, now that the pay freeze has been lifted, the basic pay increase is taken on board—and we do not yet know what that will be.

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[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

As always, it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who I agreed with for the first time ever yesterday. That is something I enjoyed, however fleetingly.

After listening to the Chancellor today, I think arrogance is up, complacency is up and delusion is up. Certainly, in my constituency of Wallasey and in the country as a whole, the cost of living is up, taxes are up, poverty is up and hardship is up. That is the background against which the Chancellor delivered his speech.

The combined Budget and spending review comes at a pivotal time for the country. That is partially a result of grim circumstance, which is beyond the control of any Government, as we have heard today—the pandemic and the challenge of the transition to net zero—but it is also the result of the Government’s serious mistakes and self-inflicted wounds. The botched Brexit deal has caused chaos at the borders, soaring prices and shortages, and the Government’s deadly complacency about the virus has resulted in one of the biggest economic hits and one of the largest per capita death tolls in the developed world—failure piled upon failure.

The most vulnerable have been hit the hardest, whether they are the young having their opportunities destroyed by school disruption, the old sacrificed in their tens of thousands in our neglected and underfunded social care system or the millions flung into poverty by the Government’s cruel universal credit cut—not compensated for by changes to the taper announced today, which will help only one in three and leave us with the circumstance whereby millionaires pay a marginal tax rate of 45p while those on poor wages who qualify for universal credit and are able to work pay 55%.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

Two brief points. First, it is worth saying that the legacy benefits system that we inherited, before we implemented universal credit, had withdrawal rates for benefits sometimes close to, and sometimes exceeding, 100%. Whatever the hon. Lady says, this is a massive improvement.

Secondly, there is a qualitative moral difference between taking from people money that they have earned and withdrawing benefits that people are given, paid for by other taxpayers. Those are different things, and the hon. Lady should not pretend that they are the same.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

While I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that benefit tapers have been a long-running problem for many Governments to solve, we know that the 63% fall in the Department for Work and Pensions’ costs has come about not because everybody is in work, but because benefits are some of the lowest in the developed world, causing huge hardship and poverty. The right hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that as well.

This is a Government who love power but are bored with the hard work of governing. They disdained to anticipate the problems their ideological obsession with a hard Brexit has created, choosing to believe their own propaganda instead, but the red book shows that, as a result, trade with the EU is sharply down and projected to reduce living standards by 4%, which is twice the OBR estimate of the cost of the covid pandemic. Underlying some of our difficulties are the problems of Brexit and the fact that the Government did not prepare for the trade disruption caused by their hard Brexit deal, which threw fishing, farming and peace in Northern Ireland to the wolves in pursuit of their own peculiar obsessions. They did not prepare for the supply chain problems caused by the shortage of HGV drivers, the vacancies in social care and the staff shortages in the NHS.

This is a Government who have been unwilling to offer short-term temporary relief to those who are suffering the growing cost-of-living crisis, as energy prices have rocketed and as inflation soars towards 5% this winter. Fuel and food prices are rising fast, and people are feeling the pinch. An end to the public sector pay freeze will not compensate unless it offers real increases in wages, which, taking inflation into account, have only just returned to their 2009 level. Let’s face it: whatever it says in the Chancellor’s latest propaganda press release, any pay increase below inflation is actually a pay cut on top of years of hardship, so we will have to await the detail.

A fair recovery would start with a Chancellor who had the humility to be honest about why these blunders have been made. Unfortunately, we do not have such a Chancellor; we have a Jekyll and Hyde Chancellor, with his eyes firmly on his own advancement and with a slick PR operation to match his vaunting ambition—a Chancellor whose persona depends a bit on his audience.

To the country at large, he is that nice Dr Jekyll, brandishing his public spending largesse in a blizzard of pre-Budget leaks, increasing the national living wage and announcing the end of the public sector pay freeze—he is hoping that we will not notice that it was he who froze pay last year, on top of a decade of previous Tory pay freezes that have seen real living standards fall more than at any time since the Napoleonic wars.

But when he is burnishing his leadership credentials with Tory MPs, he becomes the sadistic Mr Hyde, posing as a true low-tax, small-state Thatcherite, waxing lyrical about his

“sacred responsibility to…balance the books”,

because to do otherwise would be “immoral”—he is hoping that they will not notice that he has presided over the largest increase in the size of the state in peacetime and the biggest tax rises in 25 years. That comes the year after he borrowed an eye-watering £350 billion in a single year to pay for his covid response. The fraud, the waste and the graft to Tory donors have been an ever-present feature of the bonanza of state mis-spending that he has presided over. In fact, it has been the very definition of “immoral”.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No.

Does this Budget meet the formidable long-term structural challenges before us? In the short term, does it tackle the cost-of-living crisis now looming for millions this winter? No, it does not. Projections of 1.3% growth by the end of this Parliament are nothing particular to be proud of.

The Treasury-inspired blizzard of media propaganda announcing £30 billion of apparent spending commitments means that the Budget is really an afterthought. Closer inspection reveals many reheated announcements of previous Government press releases with one thing in common: despite being announced over and over again, few of them have ever actually been delivered.

There are some modest funding allocations that seek credit for restoring a minority of the huge cuts that have been inflicted in the past 11 years of this Tory Government —indeed, the Chancellor has openly boasted, over and over again, about taking spending back to 2010 levels. Having destroyed 1,000 of Labour’s Sure Start centres, this Government now expect credit for creating a pale imitation of them in just 75 places, 11 years later. Having cut skills funding by 50% since 2010, this Government now expect credit for restoring 42% of it, 11 years later. Having underfunded education for years, this Government now expect credit for restoring funding to levels that they inherited from Labour in 2010.

This is a cynical Budget of smoke and mirrors, aimed more at burnishing the Chancellor’s leadership credentials than at fixing the country’s growing challenges. As the challenges pile up like leaked Government announcements, it is becoming plainer by the day that this Chancellor is not going to be the one who meets them—and Britain will be the poorer for it.

Budget: Pre-announcement of Provisions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Sky TV tomorrow.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. It has taken me nearly 30 years, but I now find that I agree with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) in his question. This is serious. As an Opposition, we cannot look in detail at the slew—the blizzard—of Budget announcements that have been going on week after week, because we do not have the OBR report and we do not have the detail. This is treating parliamentary democracy with utter contempt and the Minister should be completely ashamed of himself. He should have come to this House and apologised. His boss should have come to this House and apologised.

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Lady for her points. Clearly, as a former Treasury Minister herself, she would never have engaged in any activity of this kind. The point is that there is absolutely no question of our commitment to observing all the proprieties, reflecting the Macpherson review, which was an internal review conducted by Sir Nicholas, the then permanent secretary, to work out what was sensible in advance of the Budget. We have not commented on any of the substantive tax measures and there will be a raft of full information in both the Budget documents and the documents provided by the OBR, which obviously provides a level of detail that the last Labour Government never provided in terms of their equivalent events.

Health and Social Care Levy

Angela Eagle Excerpts

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I will clarify: Conservative Members are breaking their promises one by one by one. The Government will claim that that is all down to the pandemic, but in March this year—a year into the pandemic—the Chancellor promised that national insurance would not go up. He said,

“this Government are not going to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT…Nobody’s take-home pay will be less than it is now”.—[Official Report, 3 March 2021; Vol. 690, c. 256.]

Another Tory promise up in flames. That was not before the pandemic; it was a year into it, and a matter of months later this bombshell on work to fund social care is a broken promise. It is unfair, and it is a tax on jobs.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making the right sort of points. Government Members do not like it, but they need to listen to it. Does she agree that when the Prime Minister signed the guarantee on the tax lock in the 2019 general election campaign, he also told the country that he had an oven-ready plan for reforming social care, prior to the pandemic? He cannot have signed the tax lock, as well as having a plan for social care, if one of those things was not exactly true.

[Rachel Reeves]

I would go further than my hon. Friend: neither of those things were true, because the Government have no plan for social care and we have a tax increase. The sad truth at the heart of this so-called health and social care levy is that it will not deliver on social care for at least three years from now, and even then it is uncertain when the Government might allow some money to trickle down. Under the Prime Minister’s plan, many will still face the threat, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition set out today, of selling their home to fund care. Many of those with a house worth £186,000—that includes many constituents of Conservative Members—will still have to sell their home to fund £86,000, within the cap. That is before the costs of living in a care home. How does the Minister expect his constituents to pay for care without selling their home? I will happily take an intervention from him—

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[Alison Thewliss]

I have seen a different analysis from the New Economics Foundation; I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at it, because it gives a very different picture from the one that the Government are presenting today, which is why we need more analysis of the policy before the Government go forward with it.

The policy will also have an impact on our recovery from the pandemic. Businesses, which have weathered such a challenging year, have spoken out against it in the strongest terms. The Federation of Small Businesses has called the national insurance hike

“anti-job, anti-small business, anti-start up”,

pointing out that the increase to national insurance will

“stifle recruitment, investment and efforts to upskill and improve productivity in the years ahead.”

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Is the hon. Lady worried that the Government appear to be increasing taxes at a far earlier stage of the economic recovery from the pandemic than similar economies?

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. The Government have learned nothing from the austerity that caused so much damage with the last crash. They are about to repeat their mistakes, and those on the lowest incomes will be hammered most, again.

The Institute of Directors has called the hike “political opportunism” and has highlighted the tax on dividends, which will hit sole traders and small company directors, many of whom were completely and unjustifiably excluded from UK Government support during the pandemic. It really does rub salt in the wounds.

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[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I look forward to seeing the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) in the Division Lobby tonight. What we witnessed yesterday was a Budget in all but name. It was a Budget sprung on this House with minimal warning and leaked to friendly newspapers over the weekend, but with scant detail being made available to Members of this House in a statement full of the deliberate obfuscations that have come to define this most slippery and unreliable of Prime Ministers. And today the Government are attempting to bounce it through the House before their own Back Benchers rise up in revolt. Some things are abundantly clear, despite the Government’s attempted sleight of hand. This announcement cynically breaks a guarantee personally signed by the Prime Minister at the last election that he would not put national insurance contributions up. That was one of two solemn manifesto pledges that he tore up yesterday, which makes me ask why anyone should believe what any future Tory election pledge says, ever again.

While proclaiming that they are the party of low taxation, the Conservatives have ushered in the largest tax rise in generations and now preside over a country with the largest percentage tax take in peacetime, but it is not a fair tax system. It continues the shift in tax liabilities away from those who make their income from owning assets to those who work. It exacerbates the three-body problem with self-employment, encouraging evasion, and it leaves wealth largely unscathed. It will exacerbate the unfairness and inequality that scar our society and that have been highlighted by the covid pandemic’s unequal effect on the poor and vulnerable. This tax hike has been presented by the Government as an historic move to fix the social care system, but in reality it is nothing of the sort.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

If the hon. Lady is so against this increase in national insurance contributions, why did she vote for one in 2003? Can she say what happened to NHS productivity as a result in the decade that succeeded it? I can, and it wasn’t pretty.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We had the Wanless report, rising real wages and a buoyant economy, and we did a lot of work with civil society and communities before we introduced the rise. We did not just pull it out of a hat like a rabbit. It led to a 6% increase per year in funding for the NHS, not the 3.5% that this measure will lead to.

[Sammy Wilson]

The Member has outlined the effect on the vulnerable and on employment. Would she accept that this is going to affect young people hard as well? People who cannot afford to purchase a house are going to be taxed to ensure that people who have an asset are protected.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, especially given the effect on those young people who are having to repay their student loans, which takes their effective marginal tax rate close to 50%. We have to look at the fairness of that.

This is not a plan to reform social care. A mere 15% of the extra £36 billion raised in the next three years is earmarked for social care and the mechanisms by which that will be dispensed are unclear, but vital to any prospect of an improved outcome. Indeed, they are so unclear that the Minister could not give us any insight into them during his opening remarks. This new money will not be available until 2023 and it will therefore not help a single family struggling now with the catastrophic cost of paying for their loved ones to access social care. It is far from certain that the NHS will not simply swallow up all the money allocated from the tax increase to try to tackle the backlogs in the NHS caused by Government cuts and exacerbated by the effects of the covid pandemic.

This new money will not make up for the huge cuts that this Government have been responsible for making to the social care system in the past 11 years. Age Concern estimates that 1.5 million people in need of care have been denied it as a result of the 7.5% per head cut in funding that this Government have delivered since they were first elected in 2010. The burden has fallen on family members and unpaid carers, many of whom have had to put their lives on hold to deliver care to loved ones with little or no support. The huge cuts to local authorities over the same period have stretched the care system beyond breaking point, yet the Prime Minister had nothing to say about any of that yesterday.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No, because I would run out of time.

This is not a plan for social care, even though the Prime Minister is claiming that it is. The system needs fundamental reform, but this is tinkering at the edges. A real reform of social care would involve wholesale change from top to bottom. It would deal with those who require care now, not ignore them and their needs as the Government have done. There is nothing for them in the Prime Minister’s announcement. A real reform would have a plan for care workers and their future, with training, career progression, decent pay and an end to zero-hours contracts, to low minimum wage remuneration, to 15-minute appointments with no pay for the time it takes to drive from one client to another and to fragmented contracts that wreck lives.

At the moment, there are 112,000 vacancies in the care sector, and staff turnover is 34% a year. That indicates the need for fundamental reform. The pay for working in an Amazon warehouse or a supermarket is higher than the pay for caring. Surely that is wrong. The covid pandemic and the shameful betrayal of care workers and those who require care, which unfolded during the first wave of covid-19, told us all we needed to know about the ramshackle nature of a system that this Government have allowed to teeter on the verge of collapse for the past 11 years.

The Prime Minister’s announcements are totally inadequate to the scale of the task, if there really is a plan to fix social care. All that those who work in care got out of his statement was a tax rise and no pay increase. Those trying to access care now got nothing. Those trying to provide domiciliary care were not even mentioned, and nor was the growing army of carers. Protecting the assets of those needing to access care for long periods is not a substitute for fundamental reform of the system; it is not a plan for social care. It is a sign that the Government are dodging a long overdue and necessary reform. The Prime Minister’s so-called plan breaks election promises. It is half-baked, inadequate and unjust.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend speaks on these matters with extreme authority and experience, and I thank him for all his engagement on them with me and others. He is right to want to make sure that we have a long-term plan for people in the NHS. He will know that we are committed to delivering 50,000 more nurses and 50 million more primary care appointments, but as part of that plan we must ensure that we get the number of GPs right as well, and I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend on that.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Given that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have already decided to break their manifesto commitment on overseas aid and are now gearing up to break their solemn manifesto promises on the tax lock and the pensions triple lock, why should any voter believe ever again that a Tory manifesto promise is worth the paper it is written on?

[Rishi Sunak]

What people know they get from this Conservative Government is a Government who are on their side, a Government who are delivering their priorities, whether their priority is 50,000 more nurses, 20,000 more police officers, record investment in every part of our country, or having a Government who are creating jobs and prosperity wherever people live. It says in that document that this is a people’s Government, and that is what we are delivering.

Ministerial Code/Register of Ministers’ Interests

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend—and it also damages business. Without the efforts of the private sector, whether it be pharma companies or production lines changing to produce what the country needs, we would have been in a really sorry state. Let us be frank, part of this agenda is to discredit the private sector.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

If the Prime Minister does not respect the ministerial code how can he be expected to judge the behaviour of other Ministers who may have breached it?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The Prime Minister does respect the ministerial code and he is the arbiter of it.

LGBT Conversion Therapy

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

I was proud to be a Minister in the last Labour Government, which did so much to ensure that LGBT+ people were finally afforded equal rights in law. There is a difference, however, between ending bigotry and prejudice in law, and making the right to equal treatment and respect a reality for every LGBT+ person in our country. The petition aims to move us further towards that point.

That would seem like an obvious, non-contentious step when considering the mistaken beliefs that underly the existence of the degrading and dehumanising practice of conversion therapy: that sexual orientation can be changed; that LGBT+ people are a threat to society, evil or disordered; that LGBT+ people are ill, sick or can be cured; and that LGBT+ people can be persuaded or forced to become heterosexual by undergoing treatment or counselling. If that approach sounds almost medieval, that is because it is, yet every day, people in our country have their lives and mental wellbeing put at serious risk by being subjected to attempts, by people who have power over them, to change their sexual orientation.

The extent of the prevalence of conversion therapy in the UK is shocking, as we heard in the excellent opening contribution by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn). There is very strong evidence of the harm that conversion therapy inflicts: more than half of those who have gone through it report mental health issues, including breakdown, eating disorders, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. Evidence also shows that it is being inflicted mainly, but not only, on vulnerable LGBT+ teenagers. That is horrific, but it is not surprising. Being told by faith leaders or your family that you are sinful, evil, and disordered for being yourself creates self-loathing and trauma that only the strongest can survive. Being told to pray harder to change and to question your innermost feelings and thoughts, and being taught to hate yourself—none of that should be legal.

Conversion therapy certainly causes untold damage and trauma for those who encounter it. Many survivors need specialist help because of the damage that that unethical and degrading process has caused. The Government must end the delay and bring the ban forward now. I welcome the petition, and I look forward to what I hope will be the Minister’s positive response and a timetable for legislation.

Government's Management of the Economy

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

Since 2010, successive Tory Governments have run a failed experiment with market fundamentalist economic dogma in the UK. They cynically blamed the global financial crisis in 2008 on the last Labour Government’s spending on health and education, and used it as an excuse to shrink the size and capacity of the state. They made an absurd fetish of the deficit, which they elevated above all other considerations as the only imbalance that had to be eliminated.

Oddly, since the Conservatives borrowed an eye-watering £400 billion last year to finance the response to covid-19, they seem to have stopped worrying about the deficit. All of a sudden, they now argue that the country can carry such debt burdens, when to do so was apparently utterly ruinous only 12 years ago. Their decision to introduce huge cuts in spending since 2010 is now exposed for what it really was: a cynical, ideological choice, not an economic necessity.

The Conservative party took office with a programme of cuts that hit the poorest and most vulnerable hardest, at the same time as it introduced huge tax cuts for top earners. We can now see that cutting the size and effectiveness of the state was folly, causing poverty and destitution to soar. It was a social catastrophe; it weakened this country and left us woefully ill-prepared for the challenges that we are now facing; and it made us far more vulnerable than we need have been.

As this country grapples with a global health pandemic and the effects of Brexit combined, the extent of the damage that the Conservatives’ ideological obsessions have caused is plain to see. They have delivered a terrible double whammy: the worst economic crisis in any developed economy and one of the highest per capita death rates in the world.

Local authority funding has been halved in the past decade, with a higher percentage of resource taken from poorer areas. That has hampered our response to the pandemic, not least because of the huge cuts that the Government made to public health budgets. They weakened the NHS by ruinous reorganisation, fragmentation and enforced competition. Staff shortages and cuts to intensive care unit beds made our death rate worse. Public services have been hollowed out to make way for expensive outsourcing to cronies and Tory donors. The lack of adequate sick pay is setting back the fight against the virus and causing more avoidable transmission and deaths.

Lives have been needlessly lost, life chances are being squandered and people are suffering, so we must make a different choice. We must choose not the smallest state but an active and empowering state; we must renew our public services, not starve them of resources; and as we seek to recover from this crisis, the state must work in partnership with business to lay the foundations of our future success and prosperity.

Financial Services Bill

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

Indeed, Martin Lewis, who does some excellent work in this regard and whom I met on this topic recently, looked at this very matter—he commissioned some work from the London School of Economics to look into it—and recommended that we should not take this cap on the SVR. There will always be a variety of views, but I have set out very clearly why I think this is the right position.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Minister is full of reasons, as Treasury Ministers always are, for not accepting amendments or new clauses that people have tabled to solve problems. Does he appreciate the frustration that mortgage prisoners and those who are trying to do something about financial crime feel when they hear Ministers giving us all the technical reasons why things cannot be done but not really proceeding with much alacrity to solve the problems that we raise, albeit not necessarily in the correct format?

[John Glen]

I am very happy to respond to that. That is why, over the last three years, I have engaged with the problem and worked with the FCA to change the lending criteria so that an estimated 125,000 of the 250,000 mortgage prisoners have been able to switch to more affordable mortgages if they are not taking on lending and are not in arrears. This a complex problem. I am still focused on the 55,000 that we estimate are in that difficult position. I will continue to work with stakeholders and industry representatives to find solutions, working closely with the FCA, but that does not permit me simply to allow any intervention. I did start my remarks with a concession on something that I thought was constructive.

Let me move on to new clause 26, which would require a lender to seek a borrower’s permission before transferring their loan. That would give rise to significant financial stability concerns, especially if a firm was entering liquidation, since it would prevent the timely transfer of the mortgage book. Selling a mortgage book can also represent a sensible way for a lender to manage its balance sheet and does not change the terms or conditions of a borrower’s mortgage contract.

I turn to a number of amendments relating to EU exit and financial services. New clause 12 would require the Treasury to assess the impact of adopting different rules from those of the EU through the Bill. It is right that the UK is able to adopt rules that best suit our own markets. The Government have published an impact assessment alongside the Bill, so the new clause is unnecessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I wish you, the Minister and the House a happy new year?

The Bill returns to the House at a very important moment for the country’s economy and our financial services industry. We have just come to the end of the transition period with the European Union, and we are of course in the teeth of the battle against the virus. Against a background like that, the business of legislating can seem even more prosaic than usual, and perhaps that is even more the case with a Bill such as this one. It is a mixed bag of measures dealing with everything from onshoring various EU directives to the length of the term of office for the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority. Some of it is a necessary consequence of our withdrawal from the European Union, and other parts look as though they have been sitting in the Treasury waiting for a legislative home, like policies hoping for a passing bus.

I want to focus on the amendments tabled in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and then turn to some of those tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends. The first amendment I want to speak to is our amendment 1 on the UK’s net zero commitments. The Bill sets out, in schedules 2 and 3, a list of things that the regulators have to have regard to in the exercise of their new and expanded functions under the Bill. It talks of international standards and competitiveness, yet nowhere is there a mention of the overarching goal that will shape so much of our economy in the decades to come.

In this place, we have rows and arguments about all manner of issues, but sometimes the things that generate the most heat, if the Minister will pardon me the pun, are not always the biggest or most important issues. Conversely, just because an issue has bipartisan support does not make it less significant, and there is no doubt that the Climate Change Act 2008, as amended by the Climate Change Act (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019, is one of the most significant pieces of economic legislation to pass in this country for many years.

To achieve our net zero goals will require wholesale change in many walks of life. The briefest of looks at the Committee on Climate Change’s report on how this should be done shows what the main areas will be. On energy, we need to find replacements for fossil fuels, we have to invest in the shift to hydrogen and we are still trying to make carbon capture and storage a practical reality. On transport, the transition to battery power will have to proceed at an ever-increasing pace. On housing, we need not only to build new zero-carbon homes, but to retrofit millions of existing homes with zero-carbon heating systems. Agriculture, food production and even the clothes we wear—all these things will undergo big change, and all of them will require significant financial investment.

The UK financial services sector has a huge role to play. In seeking a post-Brexit role, what better long-term mission could there be than empowering the change that we need to make to preserve the planet for future generations? This is not just my view—the Chancellor himself has said as much. In his statement on the future of financial services, given two months ago from the Government Dispatch Box, he not only announced the first green gilts, but said he wanted to see

“the full weight of…capital behind the critical global effort to tackle climate change”.—[Official Report, 9 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 621.]

Yet this Bill, which empowers the regulators in so many other ways, is totally silent on that issue. The Minister says we might do it in the future. [Interruption.] He says from a sedentary position that we will do it in the future. He has an opportunity to do it today—he could just accept the amendment. What is the point of waiting until the future to do this, as he has indicated he will, when there is an amendment that does not seek to add any new commitments but simply to make this part of the remit of our financial services regulators?

There are many reasons, as my newly ennobled—if that is the correct word; newly honoured, perhaps—hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) said, to say no to amendments, but “not invented here” is one of the worst if the Government have indicated they are going to accept it.

The Government say they want the UK to be the centre for green finance globally, but their first legislative outing on this sector since we left the European Union says nothing about mandating the regulators of the industry to make that part of their mission. As I said, our amendment does not seek to add to the commitments on net zero that the UK has already made, which are already set out in legislation and enjoy the support of all sides of the House, but to make these part of the remit of the regulators that shape our financial services industry. There is already a move towards greater environmental investing from investment funds and from consumers who want to invest in this way, and there is a desire for these products, so why do the Government not back that up by making it part of the regulators’ remit?

We know that these commitments cannot be met without large-scale investment. To anyone who says to just leave it to the market if there is an investor desire, we also know that it cannot be done by the private sector alone. This will take both the private sector and the public sector working together and pulling in the same direction. It is in that spirit that we put forward the amendment. We ask for something that has bipartisan support, is in line with the post-Brexit goal for the sector as set out by the Chancellor himself and will make it easier for the country to achieve its commitments.

Further to that, we are also asking for something that the Minister said in recent minutes that the Government will do at some point anyway. We very much hope that, between now and six o’clock, the Government will reconsider and accept the amendment, which they said they agree with and will bring forward in some way themselves at some point.

Just two weeks ago, the House approved the post-Brexit trade and co-operation agreement, but for financial services this is basically a no deal agreement. The references within it do no more than repeat standard pledges of co-operation in every free trade agreement. The Prime Minister himself acknowledged that, for this sector, he did not achieve as much as he hoped. Indeed, within a few days of the agreement, £6 billion-worth of euro-denominated share trading shifted from London to European exchanges—an immediate response to the new situation.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the way the Government approached the Brexit negotiation means that there is literally no incentive for the EU to agree equivalence arrangements, because the lack of them means exactly what he just pointed out—jobs and trading formerly done in London migrating to the EU? Does he also agree that, in this new environment, any move by the Government to give the City a competitive edge is likely to lessen the chances of progress on equivalence in the EU, and the market access that comes with it? That is another threat to jobs in the City and to tax revenue for the Exchequer.

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this throws into sharp relief the claim that we hold all the cards. It also throws into sharp relief the debate about divergence, as that remains undecided. The fact that the agreement approved by this House two weeks ago did not cover financial services in any meaningful way was not an accident; it was a choice that the Government made. Step by step, the Government abandoned any attempt to prioritise the market access that the financial services sector, and indeed services in general, had until the end of last year. I remind Conservative Members of the Chequers paper published in 2018, of which they may have more or less fond memories. It acknowledged that on this issue,

“there will be more barriers to the UK’s access to the EU market”

than there are today. On equivalence regimes, it said:

“These regimes are not sufficient to deal with a third country whose financial markets are as deeply interconnected with the EU’s as those of the UK are. In particular, the existing regimes”—

that is, the equivalence regimes—

“do not provide for…institutional dialogue…a mediated solution where equivalence is threatened by a divergence of rules or supervisory practices”.

That which was deemed insufficient by the Government two and a half years ago has now become the height of their ambitions, and even that has not yet been achieved. With each step back from what they aimed for before, the incentives to shift funds and people become bigger.

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[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab) [V]]

I wish to speak briefly in support of new clause 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), to whom I pay tribute for her work with campaigners on the issue. Her new clause would require buy-now-pay-later operators to be regulated by the FCA.

As others have said, buy-now-pay-later is a new and growing industry, the popularity of which has rocketed in the pandemic, with one company reporting a 43% increase in sales. It is a form of credit that promotes impulse buying—one in four users spend more than they planned—and it is targeted at young consumers who are pursued by companies using celebrity influencers and targeted ads. StepChange, the debt charity, is seeing many more under-40s coming forward for advice with this type of debt. Let us protect consumers and properly regulate the sector, which is currently uncontrolled and operating with a social media-savvy face. Let us not wait for people to get into trouble with unsustainable levels of debt, particularly when we will see an increase in personal debt because of the pandemic.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I wish to focus on two areas: equivalence with the European Union for our financial services sector and financial crime. I also support the efforts to provide more protection against abuses in the consumer credit market and the mortgage market.

As a result of the Government’s decision to pursue a very hard Brexit and the ending of the transition period, UK financial service companies have now lost their passporting rights to EU countries. The Government’s trade and co-operation agreement with the EU in effect sidestepped financial services, putting at risk many jobs in the sector and much tax revenue for the Exchequer. The deal means that there is an agreement for goods, in which the EU has a trade surplus with the UK, but nothing for services, in which the UK has a huge trade surplus with the EU. There is a feeble non-binding declaration to establish a framework for co-operation on financial regulation, but there is no sign of any rush from the EU to grant the UK equivalence so that the loss of passporting rights can be overcome and continued market access to our financial services sector can be achieved. Perhaps the fact that €6 billion of share trading formerly done in London migrated to Paris and Amsterdam on the first day of post-Brexit trading is encouraging Brussels to drag its feet and hope that much more will follow. Over time, I fear that this Government’s lack of interest in protecting equivalence for financial services is more likely to lose us jobs and revenue than inaugurate the big bang 2.0 that the Chancellor was fantasising about in the Commons earlier this week.

Financial and economic crime is a huge problem, and one that the Government have been far too slow to address. Their own estimates suggest that one in five people in the UK falls victim to fraud every year. There is £6 billion of organised fraud against business, and this is getting worse. The extent of economic crime in the UK, including money laundering, fraud and corruption, led the Intelligence and Security Committee in its report on Russia to note that London is now considered a “laundromat” for corrupt money. As the scale of global corrupt wealth enmeshed in the UK property market becomes visible, we need an urgent step change in the Government’s response, especially on transparency of overseas property ownership, and a tightening up of the company formation process in the UK. More needs to be done, and urgently, to crack down on this behaviour.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Apologies to those who failed to get in because of time constraint. I call the Minister.

Economic Update

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has met several groups and heard representations on different proposals. I am not aware of another country that has found a way to support people’s dividend income, but if my hon. Friend knows of one, I would be delighted to look into it if he sends it in.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

Does the Chancellor believe that the £22 billion cost of Serco test and trace has been spent in a way that represents the best value for money?

[Rishi Sunak]

The testing capacity that we have in this country has considerably increased from where it was. The House will remember that at the start of this crisis it was 10,000, and now we are doing several hundred thousand a day, so that is a substantial increase, and testing can play a part in reducing the spread of transmission. Obviously, given the new strain of the virus, we have had to put in place new restrictions, which is disappointing, but I still believe that test and trace can play a role in suppressing the spread of the virus, especially as we come out of this crisis. The hon. Lady is right to hold me and others accountable for every pound of taxpayers’ money that we spend and I am sure will continue to do so.

Financial Services Bill (Ninth sitting)

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[John Glen]

There is no intention to moderate or significantly alter the effect of the regulation. This is about doing what is necessary to ensure that we regulate the services and activities of overseas investment firms following an equivalence determination. The changes are designed to be consistent with the direction of travel that we have pursued within the EU, but making changes that are necessary for the different outcomes-based approach that we have always taken in the UK.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Just briefly to add to the questions from my right hon. Friend, why on earth is there all this faffing about when we are having total equivalence and companies will want the rules to be the same? Is this just another obtuse obsession with sovereignty, which will cost a hell of a lot more money because we will have to have our own bespoke regime that is meant to do exactly the same thing?

[John Glen]

I think the hon. Lady’s point goes back to the decision made to leave the EU and the implications of that. I recognise that we had a conversation in the previous sitting about the nature of the regimes that have been mooted as a possible solution.

I did an extensive session with the Lords EU Services Sub-Committee yesterday morning dealing with the issue of equivalence. We see this as a technical process. We have filled in several thousand pages of forms across 17 questionnaires for the EU, and it has not made those determinations, so we moved forward and made our determinations of the EU and are seeking to bring as much clarity as possible. This is another example of our bringing clarity to industry in as straightforward a way as possible, and the changes reflect that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I praise the Minister for his diplomacy. Having been a Treasury Minister myself, I know that diplomacy is extremely important when he sits in his bivouac. Has he made any assessment of the extra red tape that he is putting on our own financial services sector by insisting, for reasons of sovereignty, on a different but hopefully equivalent route? He and I both know that the minor differences between what is allowed and what is not can turn into weaknesses and reasons for arbitrage and rule breaking if those who regulate are not extremely careful.

[John Glen]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s deep experience in this matter and I am grateful for her empathy with the need to be diplomatic as a Treasury Minister. The measure is about extending limited supervisory powers to replicate EU powers. Her general point about the additional costs that can accrue to industry is something that we are very concerned about. We have always had within the UK a different approach to onshoring regulations, and that will continue.

FSMA 2000 gives us that outcome-based approach. When we downloaded the directives that we participated in creating in the EU and the Commission process, we always did it in our own way as per those principles. The hon. Lady’s main point is a key concern for the Government. That is why we are anxious to give assurance of continuity where it is plainly necessary and illustrate how we can do things as smoothly as possible, to minimise disruption to industry in a time of prolonged uncertainty, which I hope will come to an end soon.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 27 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 10

Amendments of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

I asked some questions about this matter in relation to clause 27, so I do not intend to speak again.

[Ms Eagle]

The powers are necessary to prevent not only exploitation that might pose some systemic risks to the financial system, but catastrophic loss to UK investors due to rogue investors or investments. Regulators are reluctant to use the more draconian end of their powers, and there is little evidence that they actually go there.

Is the Minister satisfied that the practical effect of the changes will be that the FCA is determined to use those powers, if need be? It seems to be reluctant to go to the stage of closing firms down. That would be a huge decision that may involve considerable disruption. Is he convinced that the FCA has the resources, the aptitude and the determination to do that if necessary?

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. This goes to the heart of the evolution in the FCA’s responsibilities in an environment where it is being asked to do things differently and to account to Parliament for its actions. The future regulatory framework discussions through the next six months will allow us to solidify what those responsibilities will be.

The hon. Lady is right to say that the FCA will be required to make significant judgments on regulatory and supervisory developments, enforcement practices and other relevant market developments in third countries. The Treasury will request reports from the FCA with regards to overseas jurisdictions. We will consider those reports and other sources of information and take appropriate action, which would involve reviewing and equivalence determination or withdrawing equivalence.

Resourcing is a matter for the FCA itself, which it reflects on and establishes a levy for. I have conversations every six weeks with the FCA’s chief executive and chairman, and such matters are under ongoing review. Clearly, in the light of these changes, the FCA will need to update its provision. The FCA has a new chief executive officer who is undertaking a significant transformation project. I welcome his appointment and his plans, but reviews will be ongoing, and I am confident that he and his organisation will rise to the occasion.

[Ms Eagle]

I am sorry to press the Minister again, but this area is crucial to ensuring that our financial services industry is properly and appropriately regulated. We will be discussing crime, money laundering, and market abuse later today, I think, but the powers arranged against a regulator wanting to take drastic action, particularly in the form of disruption, trouble, lawyers, threats and all that, can mitigate decisive action. With Action Fraud and the failures in some of these areas, we have seen that even when criminal liability and offences are in the mix, rather than just regulatory offences, we do not seem to have developed a system that is as effective as it needs to be.

To what extent does the Economic Secretary think that the FCA’s use of levies to finance that activity is good enough given their volume and the drastic effects of some decisions, especially considering the funding of other regulators? Across the pond—we will increasingly have to look across the Atlantic—regulators are much better resourced than our own. Is he convinced that he has got the balance right for capacity and resources?

[John Glen]

The hon. Lady is taking me further and further away from the Bill. Her core point is about the suitability and sufficiency of the FCA’s capability. The FCA has provision to take account of consumer and market conditions and intervene, and I am clear that it has the capacity and the experience to do that work. The broader economic crime challenges that she mentions are why the March Budget contained an additional £100 million economic crime levy to support existing public investment and levies.

These are an ongoing, challenging, evolving and changing set of risks across that market, with the application of new technology—I have mentioned cryptocurrencies—and new ways of doing business that mean that the nature of crime is also evolving. I would never be complacent about the capacity of the FCA, and I recognise that it needs constant review and refresh to ensure that it is aligned with the other agencies involved in monitoring and dealing with threats to market integrity.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 10, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

Clause 28

Part 4A permissions: variation or cancellation on initiative of FCA

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

I want to come in briefly, on the back of what the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East has said. What analysis have the Government done on whether the increase will be any more of a deterrent than the current seven-year maximum? I note that that is a maximum, and relatively speaking not a huge amount of time, given the severity of some of the crimes that may have been committed. What is the average sentence handed out at the moment? Is it closer to seven years, or is it closer to a couple of years and just a slap on the wrists?

As the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, few cases get to that stage anyway. To help increase the number of people who are prosecuted, what additional resourcing will be put into the policing of financial crime? It is clearly an area that needs significant expertise. If we are going to catch people who are looking to circumvent the system, we need to have people at least as good on the other side of the balance sheet to make sure that they are catching up with them. What recruitment schemes are being put in place to attract the kind of people who will be able to investigate, prosecute and see processes through to the end, to make sure that there is a proper deterrent and people feel that they are going to get caught, fined and locked away? There needs to be sufficient expertise to make sure that that really does happen.

[Ms Eagle]

My concerns mirror the comments that were made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East and by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central. Financial crime and fraud are areas of crime that have been under-played and under-resourced for enforcement in recent years. We know about the effects of Action Fraud and its almost minuscule levels of successful prosecutions over the years. It is one of the areas that I feel most worried about as a constituency MP. When constituents come to me with issues of fraud, they have often been given the run-around for many years and I know that, realistically, justice for them is often very far away.

Financial crime is somehow regarded as less worrisome than other forms of crime. It seems always to be at the back of the queue in terms of enforcement resources. It is almost as if some people think, “If you can get away with it, more power to your elbow.” That introduces attitudes and approaches to the rules, regulations and law that are, at the very least, unfortunate and, probably more accurately, dangerous. It is particularly worrisome given the size of our financial services sector and the number of jobs associated with that sector, and the impact if it were to be destabilised by that kind of attitude getting a grip. It is extremely important that, as a jurisdiction, we clamp down on these crimes.

Is the Minister as worried as I am? Is he satisfied that this form of levy approach is the right one? It makes it look like the state does not worry so much about financial crime—that it does not worry enough to finance the prosecution and policing of it, and that the industry has to somehow pay for its own policing and prosecution. That is an issue.

We would all welcome the increase in sentencing from seven to 10 years that clause 30 contains, but is not the real deterrence to be found in much more rigorous enforcement and financing of enforcement, rather than simply increasing the likely sentences if someone is caught? If people feel that there is not much of a chance that they are going to be caught, an increase in sentencing from seven to 10 years is not really much of a deterrent to bad behaviour. The other thing that worries me is that the risks to those individuals who might be tempted are quite small, when we consider the number of prosecutions, but the rewards, should they get away with it, can be huge. Such a risk-reward assessment does not exactly imply the sort of the deterrence that we all want to protect the integrity of our markets.

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[John Glen]

I thank Opposition Members for the last three speeches. I think that they expressed a broad understanding of and agreement with the measure, but more general concern about the capacity for implementation and the need to ensure that the issue is addressed more broadly. I am happy to try to respond to those points.

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East started the conversation about enforcement and prosecution. The terms of the clause will help to ensure that market abuse is recognised as serious misconduct in the same way as fraud is currently judged, and that will send a clear message to individuals who break the law: they will be held to account.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central spoke about the length of sentencing. Since 2009, there have been 36 successful prosecutions for market abuse offences—the average sentence is 1.7 years, and the longest sentence was 4.5 years. To date, no criminal market abuse case has been tried that resulted in a seven-year sentence. That does not preclude the possibility of convictions in future cases that require a longer sentence as a result of aggravating factors, such as a significant breach of trust by senior individuals or sophisticated criminality by organised criminal groups.

In the light of the comments of the hon. Member for Wallasey about the challenges faced, I also want to add that in last week’s spending review an additional £63 million was allocated to the Home Office to boost Action Fraud. I also mentioned the economic crime levy in an earlier response, although that is anti-money laundering specific, and will not cover fraud. But a number of other activities are relevant to the points raised by Opposition colleagues.

A significant amount of work is going into the reform of suspicious activity reporting, where banks highlight transactions that give reasons for concern. That reform will be integral to our response to economic crime, and it is vital in uncovering and combating wider criminal activity. The Home Office is leading on that work.

The hon. Member for Wallasey made a point about the £100 million levy and the outsourcing, essentially, of capacity. It is important that we have joint working between the Home Office, the Treasury and the private sector on this matter. Just last week, I had a conversation with the payments regulator and UK Finance about push payment scams and the need to increase the confidence in the way those matters are treated. They are complex and involve sophisticated fraud against many of our constituents. I completely empathise with the hon. Lady’s frustration regarding the apparent lower prioritisation of this area. Across my 12 broad areas of responsibility, it is this that I find most challenging to move forward on definitively because the nature of the challenge is evolving. However, the work going on there and the payments regulator’s imperative to act, which it will do following the consultation, is significant.

However, with respect to the questions on this particular clause, I hope that the value of that enhanced sentence, which reflects the 2015 report, is understood. We will not bring the broader measures to a conclusion now, but I hope that I have signalled some of the ongoing efforts to try to deal with what is a particularly challenging area.

[Ms Eagle]

To some extent, this is illustrated by the fact that the enhanced sentence was in a 2015 report but we are only just legislating for it now. Five years later, we are still only talking about a sentence that is highly unlikely ever to be used, based on the past record—the Minister just quoted it himself. I wonder whether he might increase the confidence that some of us have that this is being tackled in a coherent way—we will get on to some of this later—by talking about the fragmented supervisory system and what he is doing to help bring that together so that the fragmented regulation of this whole area can actually be done more coherently, so that we can get enforcement on abuse. We all know that, prior to the big bang in the City, this was all done informally anyway, by gentleman in their clubs. It seems to me that we never really got a grip, after the big bang, in dealing with that informal networking that goes on, where a lot of the gaps and a lot of the potential insider dealing actually lurks. Perhaps he could give me a little bit more confidence about that.

[Mr McFadden]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

A couple of boring things: first, I have been told that I am being too generous with interventions—I do not think there are any at the moment. Secondly, that last oration was good on the generalities of money laundering, but I think clause 31 focuses tightly on overseas investors, so if it happens too often, knuckles will be rapped. However, it was interesting and I learned a lot, so thank you, Pat McFadden.

[Ms Eagle]

I suspect you have just wiped out most of my speech, Dr Huq. We want to hear from the Minister about the adequacy of having just this clause, and not a lot else, to deal with the issue in this portmanteau Bill. In the debate on clause 30, we heard that it had taken the Treasury five years to increase from seven to 10 years the potential sentence for market abuse. The Treasury Committee’s 2019 report—I am now a member of that Committee—was excoriating about the scale of the problem, with between tens of billions and potentially £100 billion lost. As we have discussed in relation to other parts of the Bill, we know that small weaknesses in the defences can be ruthlessly targeted and become much bigger if they are not closed off.

We are reassured about the point that the Minister is trying to make with clause 31, but given that our country has been described as a laundromat for money laundering, perhaps the Government could have used this Bill as a suitable legislative opportunity to make other changes to the money laundering legislation that this clause amends. Perhaps the Minister could explain why that action has not been taken and give us an idea of what will follow. He has already referred to a reform of the suspicious activity reports regime. Why is that not included in this Bill, given that an analysis of it has found that over 80% of the reports are from banks, and very few from other places where there might be suspicious activity, such as property ownership in the UK? As we know, that is how money can be laundered.

We seem to have got ourselves into a situation where the banking structures just produce suspicious activity reports in massive numbers—three quarters of a million of them in a year, I think. Among those, the real ones are perhaps hidden, but the regulators are trying to get through them all and do very little. At the same time, we know that when the FinCEN papers were actually leaked, that involved, between 2000 and 2017, the transfer of close to $2 trillion of transactions, which were included in these suspicious activity reports.

Many transactions laundered money through our systems—many from overseas, in terms of what we are dealing with in clause 4. HSBC allowed fraudsters to move millions of dollars of stolen money around the world even though they knew it was a scam. J.P. Morgan allowed a company to move more than one billion through a London account without knowing who owned it. I could go on.

It seems that clause 31 is a tiny little attempt to stop an abuse, given that the abuse going on is of that scale. There is also the husband of a woman who donated £1.7 million to the UK’s Conservative party, secretly funded by a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Putin. Again, I could go on. I hope that the Minister is going to at least give us some view about what is going on here and whether clause 31 is the be-all and end-all of what the Government intend to put in place to deal with this issue.

On victims of fraud, criminals have successfully stolen £1.2 billion from individuals through banking fraud; in an earlier debate, the Minister was talking about his own frustrations with trying to get a grip of that issue. That figure on scams comes from 2018. It is also estimated that £5.9 billion a year is defrauded from businesses in the public sector.

The issue is not just about oligarchs running their money around the world and laundering it into property and other things. It is not just about mafiosi or corrupt political leaders doing the same, although all that is happening. This involves your constituents, Dr Huq, and my constituents, who are losing money through banking scams. Our public sector is losing money through other scams, which bleeds away the resources available to us to do the other things we need to, especially when these resources are scarce.

This issue can sometimes look very technical—it is about overseas investors and is only little clause 31. But it is not only about corrupt laundromats, Russian reports and corruption on a scale we can only think about. It is also about some of our well-known high street banks indulging in such activity and covering it up somehow, because having the business is so profitable for them—and, again, the risks of being caught and fined are outweighed by the profits that can be made by turning a blind eye. It involves all of the major banking and investment institutions. It involves estate agents, lawyers and accountants who are facilitators—wittingly or unwittingly—to all these activities.

We had better get a grip: the more this kind of money is present, the worse and dirtier it makes our structures and systems and the more cynical it makes our constituents. It makes all of us less likely to follow the rule of law and agree that the right thing should be done. It changes the balance that people calculate between the risks of doing something wrong and the rewards of not being caught. None of that helps the rule of law; none of it helps honesty; and none of it helps those of our constituents who strive their whole lives to do the right thing and yet see others profit massively from scams and reprehensible behaviour—criminal behaviour, in a lot of cases.

Dr Huq, I have ranged a bit wider than the terms of clause 31, but I think that it is the start of a fightback on money laundering regulations. Even though it represents a tiny, tiny little step, the Government have yet to persuade me that they want to get a grip of the situation and intend to do so through the Bill.

[John Glen]

I thank Members for their contributions, although at times as I listened I thought that I was in the wrong place, given the wider conversation about economic crime. However, I greatly respect the sentiments and points expressed and I will try to address the questions put.

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East spoke of a mental image of a cupboard being cleared out. I will not deny that in my three years as Economic Secretary I needed to legislate on a number of matters, and the Bill necessarily brings together a number of them. However, there will be more legislation if I can persuade the authorities in this place to grant me that opportunity. I assure him that the Bill does not represent the end point on a number of matters. The clause, however, merely ensures the continuation of, and ability to vary in future, existing powers and requirements with respect to overseas trusts.

New clause 30, proposed by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, would impose a requirement on the Treasury to report on the impact of the provisions of clause 31 on the expected change in corporation tax and income tax paid, and the expected change in the difference between the amount of tax required and the amount tax paid in relation to overseas trusts and Scottish limited partnerships. I reiterate that the Government are committed to ensuring that the UK’s corporate structures are not exploited by those seeking to avoid or evade tax. For reasons that I will outline, however, the Government cannot support the proposed new clause.

As I have said, the Government have introduced changes through amendments to the money laundering regulations that directly aim to improve the transparency of the ownership of trusts. In particular, those changes significantly expand the requirement for non-UK trusts to register with the HMRC trust registration service. Trusts will have to provide evidence that they are registered before entering into business arrangements with regulated firms under the money laundering regulations. HMRC needs clear powers to take enforcement action against those who do not comply with registration requirements, and the Government need to maintain the ability to amend those requirements in future.

The powers in the Sanctions and Anti-money Laundering Act 2018 will ensure that the UK Government can continue to make and amend their regulations. The proposed new clause would require the Treasury to publish a report on the effects of clause 31 on the amount of taxes paid, but it is not in line with effects of that clause, which does not make changes to taxes. The provision is not expected to bring about any changes in the amount of corporation tax and income tax paid nor any change to the tax gap in relation to Scottish limited partnerships or otherwise. Neither is it envisioned that it would be possible to attribute any variation in taxes paid, nor the tax gap, to clause 31.

New clause 35 imposes a requirement on the Treasury to report on the impact of the provisions in clause 31 on money laundering volumes involving overseas trusts and Scottish limited partnerships. I understand that it seeks to measure the impact of our efforts to prevent money laundering through trusts, but may I remind hon. Members that the current Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the 2017 regulations that they amended, namely, the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, already require the Treasury to carry out a review of its regulatory provisions and publish a report setting out the conclusions of its review by June 2022? That wider review will provide a more meaningful evaluation than simply reporting on the narrow provision of the clause, and provide continuity in the Government’s powers to make changes in the UK’s anti-money laundering regime.

I also remind colleagues that Scottish limited partnerships are not specifically within the scope of the trust register, and point them towards separate legislation that deals with transparency for those vehicles. In June 2017, Scottish limited partnerships were brought into scope with the public register of beneficial ownership maintained by Companies House. Since the Government introduced new reporting requirements for Scottish limited partnerships in 2017, new registrations of Scottish limited partnerships have greatly reduced, with registrations falling from 4,932 in 2016-17 to 2,689 in 2017-18, and falling further to 657 in 2019-20.

I want to take this opportunity to address some of the broader points on the alleged failures, and the work in progress, with respect to anti-money laundering and trusts. I think it reasonable to say that the UK is recognised as having some of the strongest controls internationally for tackling money laundering and terrorist financing. In recent years, we have taken a number of steps, including creating a new National Economic Crime Centre, passing the Criminal Finances Act 2017, and establishing the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision.

The hon. Member for Wallasey referred to the challenge of suspicious activity reports processing. The economic crime levy, in working with industry, is a direct attempt to invest in that reform. She asked specifically why legislation on that is not included in the Bill. That is continuing work that urgently needs to move forward, but provision for extra investment to process SARs more efficiently is being conducted at pace.

Last year, the Government published the landmark economic crime plan, which brought law enforcement and the private sector together in closer co-operation than ever before to deliver a whole-system response to economic crime. This year, we completed the transposition of the fifth anti-money laundering directive into domestic law. That remains comprehensive and responsive to emerging threats, in line with the evolving standards set out by the Financial Action Task Force—the international body that monitors such matters.

The expansion of the trusts registration service referenced today will bring millions more trusts in scope, including overseas trusts that purchase land or property in the UK. We will ensure that information on the register is made available in certain circumstances to those with a legitimate interest. We do recognise—I acknowledge the sentiments that have been expressed—that more needs to be done, and we are committed to making further progress, building on that made so far, to lead the global fight against illicit financial flows.

New clauses 30 and 35 make small amendments to clarify that the Government can enforce extraterritorial trust registration in relation to non-UK resident trustees and update those requirements in future. On why we are not doing more in the Bill, I have mentioned a number of the activities that the Government are undertaking, but I recognise that more needs to be done.

I should also mention the overseas entities Bill. In line with the ongoing commitment to combatting illicit finance, we intend to implement a register of beneficial owners of overseas entities that buy or own land in the UK as a measure of the economic crime plan 2019 to 2022. The register will be the first of its type in the world. The Government published a draft of that legislation, which accepted many of the subsequent recommendations by the Joint Committee that carried out that pre-legislative scrutiny. As the hon. Member for Glasgow Central knows, the Queen’s Speech last year committed to this Bill and to the continuing progress of that draft legislation. Lord Callanan’s written ministerial statement in July outlined the progress to date of that draft Bill.

On Companies House register reform—another matter mentioned by several colleagues—the Government are currently considering a broad package of reforms to Companies House to boost its potential as an enabler of business transactions and economic growth, but also giving it a bigger role in combatting economic crime. Following last year’s consultation, the Government issued our response to the corporate transparency and register reform on 18 September. The response summarises the views received and sets out how the Government will take forward those plans.

The Government will legislate when the parliamentary calendar allows and intend to deliver more reliable information on the companies register—reinforced by the verification of the identity of people who manage, control or set up companies, as has been referenced—and greater powers for those at Companies House to query and challenge information, so they are not just librarians, as I think they were described.

We will bring effective protection of personal information provided to Companies House and a more effective investigation and enforcement regime for non-disclosure and false-filing; the removal of technological and legal barriers to allow enhanced cross-checks on corporate data with other public and private sector bodies; continued investment in technology and in the skills of Companies House staff to make that register more efficient, effective and resilient; and broader reforms to clamp down on the misuse of entities I hope that my answers have done some justice to the questions asked, and I ask the hon. Member for Glasgow Central to withdraw the new clauses.