National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I refer him to Hansard from the previous Parliament. The comments I have just made are entirely consistent with the comments I made in the last parliamentary term.

With each day that passes, we learn more about the damage Labour’s Budget will inflict on household bills, businesses and charities, yet despite those warnings the Labour Government are determined not to listen and are ploughing ahead with this devastating proposal. The SNP will always stand up and protect Scottish jobs, Scottish services and Scotland’s people. That is reflected in John Swinney’s budget—a balanced budget in the interests of the people of Scotland and the businesses of Scotland. That is the SNP way. We have done it this year and we have done it in every one of the 17 previous years we have been in the Scottish Government.

Do the UK Government understand how commissioned services work? We have heard that quite a lot this afternoon and it is becoming increasingly clear that, at best, they have a sketchy understanding of why vital services are provided by non-statutory service providers. What is going to happen when this measure unwinds into the real economy is that charities, GP surgeries, hospices and other vital elements of healthcare provision will not have reserves. They are already operating at the very margins of financial sustainability, so when the sums do not add up, they will have two choices. They will approach the commissioning authority that has commissioned their services to ask for an uplift in their fees. The answer will be no, because the money is not there. Alternatively, they will withdraw their services or draw down their services. Either way, it will be enormously challenging and extremely damaging for some of the most vulnerable in our society.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. The Labour party has said in the main that it is the right choice to increase NICs. Like Scotland, Northern Ireland’s health and social care will be hardest hit. The Northern Ireland children’s hospice estimates that half a million pounds will be needed to cope with the NICs increase. This is a hospice that provides care for the most vulnerable in our society: children with cancer and children with life-limiting conditions. Does he agree that the measure will see the end of these excellent services, which are much needed in our communities?

[Dave Doogan]

I agree entirely with the hon. Member. There is no road back from that. The difficulty that I implore the Government to pay attention to is that when the damage that will be inflicted by this measure is inflicted by this measure, they cannot just say, “Oops, we got that wrong. If you wouldn’t mind all coming back and start delivering these commissioned services, we’ll admit we got it wrong.” When it’s gone, it’s gone. It is not acceptable that the Government are playing fast and loose with the safety net that exists in our communities and our society to catch the most vulnerable people and prevent absolute chaos. That is exactly what the Government are doing.

However, the Government should not take the hon. Lady’s word for it, or mine. We can listen to people who are at the coalface. This is primary evidence from the Scottish Huntington’s Association:

“The entire charity sector is increasingly burdened by climbing costs, funding issues, recruitment and retention challenges and an increased demand for services.

All too many have had to close their doors, with more expected to follow. Additional burdens being imposed by government at this juncture”,

the association says, are deeply unhelpful.

“Coming just weeks after the prime minister announced a ‘new partnership that can harness civil society’s full potential’ this must surely be an unfortunate oversight, and one that simply cannot be allowed to stand given the scale of its implications for the not-for-profit sector and the many thousands of people who depend upon it in the absence of alternative statutory services.”

It is not just the association that takes that view. Turning Point Scotland has advised that this measure alone will add £1.1 million to its costs overnight, and it comes at a time of a pressured environment, when many of its services are already running at a deficit. That is true of the voluntary sector, but also of the nursery and college sectors.

On healthcare, I wonder whether the Government understand the concept of whole-system costs. As I and many Members have said, when charities fold, as many of them will, the services that they were providing will no longer be there. Who will then provide that care? It will be the provider of last resort, secondary care. People will present themselves at hospitals, where there will be no room. It will be chaotic, but in a purely Treasury and fiscal sense, it will be an extremely expensive form of chaos, for which the Government, through the whole-system paradigm, will need to pick up the costs. I am not certain that the Minister has been properly briefed by his Treasury officials on what the risk assessment actually says about the human and financial costs of the change when this heads south. This is what happens when the Chancellor treats the real economy as her own personal political piggy-bank. It will not be possible to fix this once it has been broken.

I have some sympathy for the Minister in one respect. We have heard, and I will not repeat, the headline figure—the gross quantum that the Government expect to generate by lowering the threshold and increasing the rates of employer national insurance. By the time everyone who is in a position to adjust their business and employment characteristics to accommodate it has done so, by the time the Government have compensated elements of the public sector and by the time the economy has contracted to accommodate that, we are already down from £25-something billion to £10 billion-odd. That is a lot of pain to accept to gain £10 billion.

If the Government were to exclude or make provision for hospices, nurseries, the voluntary sector more generally and universities, that £10 billion would be reduced to an embarrassingly small figure, so they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I nevertheless encourage them to have the courage of their convictions and put the interests of the people of these islands first, rather than the political expediency of careering headlong towards a cliff edge that is as plain as the nose on the end of your face and jumping over it anyway in order to save face—because the Government will not save face. There is no escape from the corner they have painted themselves into. They can either U-turn and incur the political costs, which I would recommend, given that they have just come through the door—they should be at the height of their political powers, but if this is the height of their political powers, goodness me!—or they can carry on regardless, and pick up the pieces of all the chaos that will be wreaked across the sector.

This incompetence, for it is incompetence, did not start when the Government walked through the doors of Nos. 10 and 11 Downing Street. It started back in the election campaign, when they proscribed the use of the single biggest lever in the Treasury’s toolkit to get additional funding. They said that they would not increase income tax on ordinary working people, although with these measures they will take away financial opportunities and, actually, people’s money through payroll changes anyway. It is smoke and mirrors. However, by painting themselves into that corner on income tax, they have created a situation in which they have to make the most damaging tax intervention possible, which is entirely contrary to their stated ambition of generating growth.

Quite a lot of Labour Members have said, “It’s all very well listening to the Opposition, but what would you do?” I will give them two really easy things that the Government could have done. If they had mirrored the income tax thresholds that the Scottish Government have introduced, they would have generated £19 billion. That would not have had a single impediment on the real economy, would not have choked off growth and would not have put primary care on the precipice. They could have done that. Or, if they had thought that they could get by on less than £19 billion—they will have to, because they will raise less than £10 billion from this measure—they could have just reversed the previous Government’s two cuts to employee’s national insurance. Judging by the arithmetic in this place, the Conservatives did not exactly get a brilliant political return on cutting employee’s national insurance twice in two quarters of one financial year. The Government could have reversed those cuts, which would have netted £10 billion—roughly where they are now, on aggregate—but no, they did not want to do that and they refuse to do so.

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[Sammy Wilson]

The mentality is that with these national insurance increases we are imposing more taxes on small businesses and on all the sectors I have spoken about. I would ask the hon. Gentleman what spending decreases could have been looked at—have any productivity impositions been put on the public sector, for example? That should be the answer, rather than asking, “Who should we tax to pay for the black hole?” Instead, we should be asking how we can reduce and reprioritise the things that we do; looking at some of the things the Government do at present that they do not need to do, or that they could do better, or that they could save money on.

I listened with bemusement to the hon. Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson), who was relieved by a survey in The Guardian in which more than 50% of those surveyed were quite happy with this tax. If there are so many Guardian readers happy to pay more taxes, I am sure the Scottish National party would love them all to move to Scotland, because it might solve some of the problems they have. These are the kinds of strained arguments that we have had from Government Members.

They know the impacts the Bill will have. I am sure they are having the same conversations with their constituents as I have had with the people who have spoken to me in my constituency office—the small businesses, those in the hospitality industry, the GPs and those in the care sector and the charitable sector, who have come to me and told me the impact it will have on their organisation. I do not believe we can run away from this, despite what will happen when we vote later today.

I do not share the optimism of the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) that somehow little cabals will form on the Government Benches—that they will all start whispering, and maybe 10 of them will go to see the Chief Whip, and then next week it will be 20, and then, by the time there are 50 of them going to see the Chief Whip, this will all change. I do not share that optimism. What I do hope, however, is that the predictions that have been made about the Bill will finally resonate with the Chancellor, and we will see a change in policy.

[Carla Lockhart]

In my constituency and that of my right hon. Friend, agrifood manufacturing is a big business base and a big sector. As he will know, many agrifood businesses are saying that these changes will increase their bill by £50,000, £60,000 or £100,000. On top of the death tax for family farms, that will absolutely decimate our agrifood sector. I urge the Government to pull back from this measure; otherwise, we will see the cornerstone of our economy destroyed.

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course, agrifood is another sector that I had not mentioned, along with hospitality, food processing, all the charitable sectors and some that are supporting the health industry—all are affected by it; they cannot escape it. I believe the impact will be far worse than what the Government are hoping for. Of course, as a result of the side effects of this measure, the revenue that is hoped for might not even be obtained.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maya Ellis]

I will come on to opportunities to increase the prosperity of farmers, which should be our mission.

The second opportunity for farmers is around procurement and trade, and using the Government’s own purchasing power to back British produce, so that 50% of food brought into hospitals, Army bases and prisons is locally produced. We can protect farmers from being undercut by low welfare and low standards in trade deals, and we are seeking a new veterinary agreement with the EU to get our exports moving.

I want to touch on devolution and its ability to empower local understanding. Anyone who lives in a rural community knows that part of its strength is a deep generational knowledge of the land and local area. Nowhere is that more evident than in generational farming. Indeed, it is that knowledge, passed down through generations and trained into children from the time they can walk, that ensures some of the efficiencies that keep our farms going. I am a huge advocate for devolution, especially for areas such as Lancashire, where Ribble Valley is located, that include vast rural areas, because it brings democracy and understanding closer to communities. That is a huge issue that the Government are progressing at pace in order to do right by rural communities.

I am grateful to all the farmers who have been having open conversations with me about how past and future policy has and could affect them. Any new Government will take some time to unpick how relationships have worked in the past, and how they might want to change them. I came to Westminster as someone who is passionate about local leadership and devolution, and there is much that this Government can do to help farmers by taking decisions.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is making an eloquent speech about farming and the importance of farmers to our communities; they undertake roles such as gritting the roads and cutting our hedges, as well as feeding the nation we live in. She talks about devolution. Does she agree that the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs of Northern Ireland has said that one third of farmers will be impacted by the agricultural property tax, with 75% of our dairy farmers being the hardest hit? The policy is not working. Stop the family farm tax grab.

[Maya Ellis]

If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will come to how we can help the farmers who will be affected by the measures.

To finish my point about devolution, as an MP in an area with huge extents of rural economy, it is critical to me that devolution reflects our rural areas as much as our metropolitan ones. I look forward to seeing how the upcoming devolution White Paper addresses that challenge. Town and parish councils really understand our rural communities and can play a bigger role in local democracy.

Winter Fuel Payment

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I rise to publicly oppose this proposed change. I understand the need to balance the books—we all do, and we know how it works—but to be perfectly frank, and it gives me no joy to say this, I never imagined ever in my life that a Labour Government would seek to balance the books on the backs of pensioners throughout the United Kingdom. I put that on record at the beginning. I say it respectfully, but with great grief.

I fully comprehend that the system could do with an upgrade. Perhaps we should look at a household cap, as we have with the child benefit payment. Perhaps we could look at allocating per household, rather than per person. Perhaps we could look at ensuring that everyone who is still earning more than their pension through employment can have deferred payments until full retirement. Perhaps we could look at an opt-out scheme for pensioners such as me. I do not need the money; I asked not to take the money. I give the money to charity. I am not better than anybody else—never am I better than anybody else—but I realised that I did not need that money, so I gave it away. Others might want to do the same thing.

It should be direct face-to-face applications for pension credit. There should not be a nine-week wait for the application to be processed. My goodness, people need the money now. The threshold should be raised. The Government and the Minister have said about the £440 that is coming next spring, but pensioners need the money this winter and as soon as possible.

In Northern Ireland, 68% of homes rely on oil-fired boilers for heating. There are high levels of fuel poverty, with 22% of the population currently spending more than 10% of their household income on heating their homes. I think about the women who have a tiny workplace pension from the hours they worked while their children were in school. The women of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign have already been disadvantaged and will pay a further price for not being allowed to save for their needs. I am begging this Government on behalf of my constituents in Strangford not to remove the benefit from everyone in one fell swoop.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

National Energy Action estimates that close to 45 people die every winter’s day in the UK due to cold homes. This Government, in their wisdom and through this decision, have decided to imperil many more. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong, it will have an impact and it will cause deaths right across the United Kingdom?

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We all recognise that this winter will be one where pensioners will feel the gravity of this and the pain of the cold. I stand for all those who are making do with less than £1,000 a month and those pensioners who will be impacted by the winter fuel allowance being taken away from them. For them, this is a lot of money. It is the difference between being warm this winter or simply surviving. It is not an exaggeration; it is life for my constituents and, respectfully, for the constituents of those on the Government Benches.

I will conclude. The clock for speeches has stopped. I will be respectful of the time, as you would expect, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Those who have worked all their lives deserve to be paid for what they paid in. There is a basic standard, along with women and children go first in the lifeboat: protect those who cannot survive the icy cold. So let us slow down the ship—I look to Labour to make that happen—and veer away from the iceberg, which some Members only see the tip of at the moment, which could be the destruction of the Government before their first journey even begins. Let us correct course and get this right. Let us support the Opposition motion, which reflects the mood and opinion on the Opposition Benches. I hope that the Labour party will realise that it is going the wrong way. We are trying to direct them the right way.

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[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The Prime Minister and Labour Members tried to bring this country together after division and turmoil, and today I have to say they have succeeded. They have united the country. They have united it in opposition to this new Labour Government and their attack on older people—the very people who deserve compassion, dignity and respect after their lifetime of hard work.

I stand unashamedly shoulder to shoulder with pensioners in Upper Bann and across the United Kingdom in their opposition to this reckless decision. Our pensioners are being left out in the cold by a Government who promised to restore hope. Where is the compassionate Labour we were promised? Where is the restored hope? What hope do pensioners have in Upper Bann? What hope do they have that this Government might listen, care for them and stop neglecting them? They now feel like they are the target.

To be fair, this Government have offered pensioners something to keep them busy through the cold winter months by suggesting they take a stab at completing the pension credit application form—a form with 243 questions across 24 pages, with a delay of nine weeks for a decision. They are asking pensioners to navigate a bureaucratic nightmare just to receive a fraction of what they need to survive. I stand here today united with my constituents and united with pensioners across this country in opposition to this baseless decision.

In conclusion, no one is arguing that millionaires should get the winter fuel payment, but over 6 million of the pensioners set to be impacted by this decision are living on the state pension. They are living on just over £11,000 a year. Could anyone in this House live on £11,000 a year?