Easter Adjournment

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I join others in wishing you, Mr Speaker, and all Members and staff a happy and peaceful Easter. It is an opportunity to rest and to work with the many organisations in our constituencies. For many of us, it is an opportunity to have a good night’s sleep. As someone who took a Lenten vow of no chocolate, sweets, biscuits, cake and crisps, I look forward to familiarising myself—modestly, of course—with some of those items.

This has been an excellent debate in which many Members have raised their special causes. I very much agreed with the comments made by the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), about the passport contract. I can assure the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) that the Work and Pensions Committee will be looking again at the matter of funeral poverty.

I thank the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) for mentioning Simeon Andrews and his great contribution to parliamentary groups across this House. I can assure the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) that I have signed his early-day motion on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He gave an excellent speech. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) for her comments on the youth violence commission, and it was a pleasure to welcome its members to my constituency.

I very much associate myself with the comments on shipbuilding made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney). We also heard my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) talk about his beautiful constituency, despite the scurrilous remarks that were made by those on the Government Benches.

Like other hon. Members, I have tabled a number of early-day motions: early-day motion 730 praises the work of the Priesthill community breakfast; early-day motion 732 congratulates the work of the community kitchen in Hillington in my constituency; and, of course, early-day motion 733, a copy of which I handed over at a recent service, congratulates St Andrews and St Nicholas church, which collected food, clothes and toys for children for its Christmas collection. Those early-day motions demonstrate that there are still many challenges in the social security system that the Government need to address. All those organisations are doing great work and we should congratulate them, but they are not part of the social security system. What they are doing is picking up the failings of the social security system and we should not forget that.

This year is the centenary of Catholic education in Scotland, and early-day motion 735 gives us the opportunity to celebrate the contribution that Catholic schools have made to the nation of Scotland. They have done great work in improving educational standards. I was also delighted to table early-day motion 736 for Govan High School and its fundraising efforts for a pensioner who was robbed of his savings. The pupils managed to gather £1,000 in two weeks, and they should be congratulated.

There are not enough statues to women across the United Kingdom. Like many hon. Members, I was delighted to see the unveiling of the Mary Barbour statue in Govan—Mary Barbour led the rent strikes during the first world war when private landlords were putting up rents. That episode was shown in a BBC documentary. It was a privilege to be there for the unveiling of the statue and a privilege to table early-day motion 989 to celebrate the event. I also tabled early-day motion 731 on Tea in the Pot women’s services, which does fantastic work for women, particularly vulnerable women, in my constituency.

Like many others, I am very concerned about the actions of the Turkish military forces in Afrin, northern Syria. The Kurdish community—I have a good Kurdish community in my constituency—is very concerned about the lack of action from the UK Government and their failure to condemn the Turkish military forces. It is quite clear that the best force in terms of rolling back Daesh has come from the Kurdish community in Syria. The actions of the Turkish Government are, quite frankly, appalling and are rolling back that work.

I hope that all hon. Members enjoy the sleep, enjoy their Easter and familiarise themselves with many of the things that I referred to earlier. I look forward to seeing them all back in April, when I and my colleagues on the SNP Benches will continue to hold this Government to account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

The shocks from my hon. Friend never cease. I had assumed that he would be visiting the many distilleries in the constituency of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), rather than the Loch Ness monster. People say that, as Catholics, we should try to give up what we most value during Lent. I always try to give up politics, but I fail hopelessly after about a day.

[Chris Stephens]

May I suggest that next year the hon. Gentleman might want to give up Conservatism?

[Paul Maynard]

There are some things that, even for the holy mother Church, go beyond what I could possibly dream of achieving. I always think that we learn a lot from early-day motions. They may cost a lot per early-day motion, but none the less I was delighted to hear about the centenary of Catholic education in Scotland. As someone who survived the Christian Brothers during my school days, I know that they have a formative influence on all our lives. I also welcome many of the other examples of good community projects that the hon. Gentleman raised in those early-day motions.

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and your Deputies, the Clerks, the Doorkeepers and all the staff—indeed, everyone who does anything in this place—for all that they do. It is right that we thank them not just today but every time that we encounter them. Without their ceaseless good will, our lives would be much more complicated, and perhaps our labours less effective.

We are coming up to the centenary of the foundation of the RAF, but there will be another anniversary while we are not here over Easter, because it is the 40th anniversary of radio broadcasts in the House of Commons. Some might think that I am making a great play to appear on “Yesterday in Parliament”, but such ambition could not be further from my mind. Who knows? I might feature on it—we just don’t know. However, it is worth remembering that 40 years ago we started being broadcast, and what was said in this place was made available to the outside world in more than just textual form.

We might be emerging into a late spring after a somewhat harsh winter, but just as in nature, so in our constituency activities. I hope we will return to our constituencies full of vim and vigour, and seeking the greater fulfilment and excitement that we get from all the constituency visits on which we will now depart. I wish everybody here a happy and joyous Eastertide.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment.

Draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Work in Fishing Convention) Order 2018

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 General Committees

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I do not intend to detain the Committee long.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

Hear, hear!

[Chris Stephens]

That is the first time a Conservative MP has agreed with me for a long time.

The Scottish National party supports this particular piece of delegated legislation. As we heard from the hon. Member for Reading East, it is clear that the standards of living and working conditions in commercial fishing are completely inconsistent across the industry. We support this piece of work to provide minimum living and working conditions that are globally applicable and uniformly enforced. The only question I have for the Minister is whether she could say a bit more about whether there will be further consultations with the industry in relation to the implementation of ILO 188 before it is fully implemented.

HMRC Staff: Dudley

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right. I will make that point later. These are highly skilled, highly trained staff, who are very experienced in dealing with complex benefits. No better group of people could be employed for the introduction of universal credit. That is the case we are making to Ministers tonight and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is here to do so, too. I very much hope that Ministers will listen to and consider the argument over the next few weeks.

That is a really important point, because for staff in Merry Hill the closure will present grave difficulties. A high proportion of them have caring responsibilities which would make the journey to Birmingham impossible; I have spoken to mothers in exactly that position. A number of the staff came from offices that closed in the 1990s, and the journeys would make such a move impossible or impractical for them. The recent closure of the office in Walsall left more than half the staff without jobs, and the closure in Worcester is affecting nine out of 10 staff, who now face voluntary or compulsory redundancy; the majority of those staff have caring responsibilities.

HMRC insists that 90% of staff will have a job in the centres, despite the fact that all the closures so far have resulted in much higher job losses. The loss of these skilled and hard-working staff is very risky and it contradicts recommendations made by Committees of this House, which have called for a halt to the office closure process. Staff in Merry Hill believe that the DWP explanation that it has sufficient staff for universal credit to work properly flies in the face of all the current information we have about this complex new benefit’s introduction, as we heard a moment ago. Staff who work there are highly skilled: they have dealt with tax credits work since those were introduced, and they are helping with the changeover to UC from tax credits already. They were also stunned that the DWP vacancies were not even considered when the announcement was originally made.

Another point that I know will be of interest to the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) is that the office is in the middle of a recently announced enterprise zone, DY5, and the roles undertaken by HMRC staff completely fit into the Government’s vision for this enterprise zone. This brings me to my final point, which is about unemployment in Dudley.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. As the chair of the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group, I wonder whether he could confirm that no economic impact assessment and no equality impact assessment has been carried out prior to these closures in Dudley?

[Ian Austin]

As far as I am aware, neither of those assessments has been carried out. That is another point the Minister should be considering this evening.

Unemployment in Dudley is already higher than the national average, and we cannot afford to lose another 250 jobs from the borough. It is important that civil service jobs are spread throughout the country, benefiting communities such as mine, instead of being centralised in London or major regional centres. The UK is already one of the most centralised countries in the world. As a result, investment and growth have been concentrated in the capital and stifled elsewhere. Extraordinarily, despite all the cuts, the proportion of the country’s civil servants located in London actually increased every year between 2010 and 2015. Even with deep cuts elsewhere in the country, there were 5,000 more civil servants in the capital in 2015 than there had been in 2013. Instead of closing offices in Black country communities such as the borough I represent, the Government should be moving civil servants and staff from non-departmental public bodies and quangos out of London, transferring jobs from the capital to the rest of the country, spreading wealth more fairly across the UK and contributing to the regeneration of communities in places such as Dudley. That would improve policy making by getting central, regional and local government working more effectively together, bringing government closer to the people and ensuring that policy makers were better informed about what life is like in places that are often ignored by civil servants and politicians based in London. It would also save the Government money by getting staff out of expensive London property.

As I understand it, HMRC has announced that it will be moving 1,500 jobs out of London, so in the spirit of generosity for which we in the Black country are well known, may I tell the Minister that we would be very happy to provide a home for those 1,500 staff? I very much hope that he will consider moving those jobs out of London and to Dudley and the Black country.

Before I finish, I would like to ask some other specific questions. Staff in the office were told late last year that they would transfer to the DWP on 31 March 2022. Can the Minister confirm that it is still the plan that staff will remain in Dudley, working on tax credits, until that date? That would give time to see whether the DWP at Merry Hill can make some or all the fixed-term jobs permanent and offer them to staff there, and it would give time for staff to seek other work in the area and to be retrained. In addition, other DWP roles in local jobcentres would become available. That would not preclude staff who want to go to Birmingham from doing so, and it would offer other staff who work in Wolverhampton a stepping stone if their office does close, as many of them live in our area.

Will the Minister visit the offices with me and listen directly to the staff involved, or meet them here in London? Will he explain how this proposal reflects wider Government policy, given that Ministers recently designated the area as an enterprise zone? Finally, will he explain what assistance will be provided to staff who cannot transfer elsewhere or who do not get jobs elsewhere, to help them to obtain alternative employment if the proposed closure goes ahead?

The decision to close the Merry Hill office came as a huge shock to staff. Many of them will not be able to transfer and Dudley cannot afford to lose their jobs. It is my job to stand up for local people, which is why I secured this debate to demand that Ministers think again. These are hard-working and highly skilled public servants. They are very worried about their future and we need to secure their jobs. That is why we are here today, and I very much hope that Ministers will listen.

Business of the House

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Tea in the Pot, a women’s support service in my constituency, is recognised in early-day motion 731.

[That this House congratulates the Tea in the Pot Drop-in and support service based in Govan for its ongoing work to support women to become actively engaged in the community and to enable women to identify and value their skills, experiences and talents, and to feel empowered and confident to share these with others; notes this work despite their lack of core funding and supports their ongoing campaign for resources; further notes the service provides a safe and relaxing atmosphere where women can meet up with old friends and make new friends and assists women who may be coping with difficulties, or who feel under stress, have health issues of simply feel isolated; and applauds the work of the support service in supporting and empowering the WASPI women in the community which is valuable and necessary and continues to support their work in defeating isolation.]

May we have a debate or statement on funding for volunteer women’s support services, to ensure that they have the resources to empower women and defeat isolation?

[Paul Maynard]

I know that the Leader of the House attaches great importance to this issue, as does the Home Secretary. I am sure they would join me in praising the work of the local organisation to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I urge him to keep pressing for suitable debate opportunities in the House to draw attention to this important issue for all hon. Members.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

I think that where the hon. Gentleman was trying to get to—I will be generous—was that these things are symbolic and that symbolism in politics is quite important. However, to me, it is more symbolic that 46% of women have to skip a meal so that their children can eat. It is quite symbolic that women continue to be underpaid compared with men, and it is symbolic that the decisions the Government are taking disproportionately affect women on low incomes—the people who are trying to keep households together and who are raising the next generation of young people, who, because of this Government, will not have better life chances than the generation that went before them.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is also important that it was women politicians and women workers who campaigned and argued for the Equal Pay Act 1970? Will he also confirm that outstanding equal pay cases are at an all-time high?

[Jim McMahon]

That is absolutely right, but let us be honest: the Government are not in listening mode. They do not want to take into account what could have been constructive new clauses—new clauses 6 and 7. What they want to do is to maintain their stubbornness and their silence. They think that if they ignore this issue, there is not a problem in society, when we know that there is.

In terms of the pressures on income that many people in our communities face, the new clauses go beyond just gender inequality, and talk about disability and race as well. The Prime Minister has been clear that she wants to address the discrepancy in terms of opportunity, incomes, housing and the criminal justice system with members of the ethnic communities in this country. However, when we look at the way the Government have approached the Budget, the evidence just does not support that. If we look at the public sector, for instance, little effort is being made to widen participation in public sector jobs to members of the ethnic minority communities. In my constituency, a third of residents are predominantly Pakistani and Bangladeshi, but they are nowhere near properly reflected in the make-up of public services. In towns such as Oldham, where industry has, by and large, been hollowed out, the public sector is the place where people go for decent-quality, well-paid and, previously, quite secure employment. If people are restricted from entering those jobs, for different reasons, that has a material impact on their ability to lift themselves out of poverty, to get on in life and to do well.

When the coalition Government came into power, it was interesting that one of their very first acts of many that devastated towns such as Oldham was to cut the funding that went to Remploy. Remploy had a network of factories across this country that used to support people into supported employment. Those were not sympathy jobs, in the way I heard people say they were at the time; they were real jobs, and they produced goods of quality that people wanted to buy. In Bardsley, in my constituency, that meant a full factory employing 114 people making windows that they would sell to industry, housing associations and the private market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree. This year—in 2017—my office has referred 35 people to food banks, and we have gone to the food bank on five occasions on behalf of constituents who have come through the door and told us that they have not eaten for a number of days. This is supposed to be a country that cares for people who are just about managing, but it is failing them. The people who go to food banks nowadays are working. They are not earning enough money from their jobs to feed their families, so they are having to go to food banks.

We have seen this Government attack people who have protected characteristics, but we have not seen any impact assessments because the Government do not want to admit what they are doing. We have seen attacks on the WASPI women, who, despite having worked all their lives, are being asked to wait even longer for their pensions. We have seen changes with the rape clause and the two-child policy, meaning that women should not have more than two children and, if they conceive as a result of rape, they must write that down on a form and say so explicitly. Why should they have to relive that just to please this Government? We have seen increasing household debt—that has been raised as an issue by the Bank of England—and decreasing household savings. We have seen young women unable to go to school because they cannot afford tampons and towels to provide themselves with a basic level of human dignity.

Another change that has not been talked about hugely in this place is the attack on a group of people with protected characteristics. A massive and increasing number of people come to my surgery because they have no recourse to public funds. It is a particular issue with those fleeing domestic violence, the majority of whom are women. The UK Government have determined that they should have access to public funds for only six weeks if they are from outside the EEA, and not at all if they are from inside the EEA. If they have been living on a joint income with their partner and are fleeing domestic violence, they have no protection from the UK Government because they are giving them no recourse to public funds. That is an attack on a group of people with protected characteristics, and we should no longer tolerate that.

The hon. Members for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) mentioned what local authorities have to do in relation to impact assessments. I was a local councillor for eight years before being elected to this place. When we produced budgetary measures, or anything we were going to do in the city that would have an impact on communities, we had to produce an impact assessment specifying how it would affect people with those protected characteristics. If a local authority making decisions for the third largest city in Scotland has to do that, why are the UK Government making decisions that affect every man, woman and child across these islands without producing an impact assessment? Is it because they are ashamed of what they are doing and unwilling to be honest with the people?

In Scotland we are looking at having a progressive taxation system. We are lifting the pay freeze and next year we will be the fairest taxed part of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) says that we will be the highest taxed part. Some 70% of taxpayers in Scotland will pay no more tax next year than they do this year. Only the highest earners will be paying moderately more. [Interruption.] No one earning less than £33,000 next year will pay any more income tax than they would in England.

[Chris Stephens]

Is it not a bit rich for some Government Members to try to shout down my hon. Friend, complaining about people on high incomes paying a bit more tax but saying nothing about disabled individuals losing £30 a week in benefits?

[Kirsty Blackman]

Absolutely. If Government Members cared about what they were doing to disabled people, they would produce the impact assessments that are being requested today, and they would be honest about the changes they have made and how the heaviest impact has been on the most vulnerable in society.

There are folk who have been left behind by this Government. There are folk who have been failed by the safety net. Those are the people we see—I am sure that Government Members see them, too—walking into our surgeries on a regular basis. They say, “I have worked hard all my life, but I still cannot afford to feed myself and my family.” People who have worked every day for years now find that their state pension is being pushed back as a result of this Government’s policies. People find themselves homeless because they have made one or perhaps two bad decisions in their lifetime, which is far fewer than those of us who have bought a safety net and have support structures in place are able to make.

We need a culture change. The conversations we have had in this Chamber are along the same lines as those that have been had in the context of the #metoo hashtag. Women have come forward with #metoo to say that they have been sexually harassed, sexually assaulted or even raped, and people have replied, “We don’t believe you,” “It can’t be that bad,” or “You’re trying to make a big thing of this.” What the SNP and the Opposition are trying to do in this debate is to highlight the fact that these disadvantaged groups are being actively disadvantaged by the UK Government’s policies. We are asking the UK Government to produce the impact assessments, because if they deny that that is the case, they should not be scared of producing them.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Chris Stephens Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Luke Graham]

I could not disagree more. More money is going directly to frontline services, and we are lowering taxes for the working families who are most in need, so the hon. Lady will see that Charlie and Grandpa are on the Government side tonight, not the SNP side.

As we look ahead to the Scottish Budget on Thursday, colleagues in this House and in Holyrood will be waiting with bated breath to learn precisely how the SNP plans to pass the additional money to local authorities for the roll-out of broadband and other key areas of investment that it has thus far undermined. To see how contradictory some of the SNP’s behaviour is, it is worth looking at how the party misuses the powers it has, refusing to pass some of the increases in the block grant to education and health funding—matters that are explicitly devolved. As we heard in the Budget, the block grant has increased to more than £31.1 billion, which is a real-terms increase over the spending review period and up from £27 billion in 2011-12. What does that mean for our constituents? Well, we have a breakdown of how devolved spending is carried out in public services, thanks to Jim Gallagher. Under the SNP, NHS Scotland is underfunded and understaffed. Health spending in Scotland has increased more slowly than in England over the past 10 years, growing by 34% compared with 50%. Per head, that translates to spending growth of 39% in England but only 28% in Scotland.

SNP Members may complain about Tory austerity, but their argument does not stack up. Her Majesty’s Treasury figures show that total health spending increased by 9% in England between 2011-12 and 2015-16, but only by 3.4% in Scotland over the same period. After 20 years of devolution and 10 years of an SNP Administration, people living in Scotland still have the lowest life expectancy in the United Kingdom. That is a damning indictment of the financial choices the SNP has taken in Holyrood with funding from this place. I could go on, but I am conscious of time.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Please do.

[Luke Graham]

Well, education is another area that I could touch on. Reading scores and mathematics and science results are down in Scotland since 2006. England and Northern Ireland now outperform Scotland in every category.

Public Sector Pay

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. As the Member of Parliament for Glasgow South West, which the House of Commons Library informs me has a bigger percentage of public sector workers in employment than any other constituency in these islands, as a proud member of Unison and former activist and treasurer for the Glasgow city branch, and—I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—as chair of the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group, I very much welcome the debate. As someone who was a public sector worker for 25 years, I hope to bring stories of my experience in that field.

It has been an excellent debate, and I want to mention a number of contributions. The debate was led superbly by the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who discussed the plight of public sector workers, the impact of the public sector pay cap on the economy, which I want to come to later, and the fact that all nations and regions of the United Kingdom are affected. She also rightly mentioned the physically taxing nature and environment of public sector work. She referred to binnies, and it may be of interest to her that I found, when doing my research, that refuse collectors have suffered a real-terms pay cut of £2,064 a year, which I believe is a disgrace.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) mentioned the impact in Wales and the devolved Administrations, which I agree with. The hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon), who is vice-chair of the PCS parliamentary group, mentioned quite rightly the PCS ballot and the complete dissatisfaction of civil servants in the UK. I hope to mention that too in my contribution. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith), who is a former president of the trade union that I am a proud member of, mentioned the impact of the public sector pay cap on nursing. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), in a typical tour de force, talked about the impact on the teaching profession. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) mentioned the impact on nursing.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said that this will increase the gender pay gap. I agree with that point and hope to mention it. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) gave another tour de force, with very powerful examples of public sector workers dipping into their own pockets to help users of public services. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) talked about the impact on firefighters. The hon. Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) quite rightly questioned whether the Government are comfortable with making people poorer. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) talked about the magic money tree, which I will come to. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), a Unison comrade, questioned the idea that the country cannot afford a pay rise. Again, I agree with that and will come to it.

The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) said that workers’ debt levels are on the rise, which is certainly the case. The hon. Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) talked about the pressure on services. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), another Unison colleague who has replaced my good friend Dave Anderson, talked about recruitment and retention. That theme was picked up by the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and for Reading East (Matt Rodda). Last, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) reminded us quite rightly that all of us have family and relatives who work in the public services.

That was in contrast to the lack of voices from the Government Benches, with one notable exception. I think we are all disappointed by that. They are obviously attending to affairs of state and constituency duties. We did not even hear the moderate voices of Conservatives from Scotland—a collection of individuals who have yet to realise that their hero, Alf Garnett, is in actual fact a parody.

[Luke Graham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Stephens]

I am more than happy to give way to Conservatives in a moment, but I want to develop this point. Cynics may believe that a political party that introduced in 1823 the Master and Servant Acts—legislation designed to repress working people and punish them for joining trade unions—would not be interested in issues affecting public sector workers, but I cannot believe that that would be the case.

[Luke Graham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He will appreciate that it was also Conservatives who introduced some of the first health insurance schemes and comprehensive education schemes in the last century. My specific point is that the pay cap was not an ideological point by the Conservative party; it was due to financial constraint at the time. As he knows, the pay cap was devolved in Scotland for a great number of years, so the criticism that he is levelling against the Westminster Government today should also be applied to the Administration in Edinburgh, who have held that pay cap, even though they have the power and the money to change it.

[Chris Stephens]

If the hon. Gentleman does not believe that the public sector pay cap was ideological, I really do fear for him and for his political analysis. Of course it was designed to be ideological. It was part of the cuts programme in the Budget. They kept boasting about the number—

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Stephens]

In a second; I will just finish answering that point before we have a jack-in-the-box routine. It is good we have finally woken Conservative Members up.

Of course it was ideological—the Government kept talking about the savings it would bring to the Exchequer by imposing a public sector pay cap. I will talk about the effects on the devolved Administrations later on, but it might be very well for Conservative Members to read the petition itself. It says that the UK Government should be providing additional funding to fund the ending of the public sector pay cap and not allow local authorities and devolved Administrations to have to pick up the tab.

[Alex Chalk]

It is well known that Scotland now has tax-raising powers. If the Scottish Government want to pay their public sector workers more, why do they not just go on and do it?

[Chris Stephens]

Well, I would have thought a Conservative would know that the Scottish Budget follows the UK Budget. On 14 December, the Scottish Government—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) can shout people down and follow the lead of the Scottish Conservatives that we have seen in the last six months, but he obviously has not read the petition. We are debating a petition that says additional funding should be made available by the UK Government for this. As I said, a local authority, a health board or a devolved Administration should not be clearing up the mess of this Government, who continue to impose poor wages on public sector workers.

[Patricia Gibson]

Does my hon. Friend, like me, despair at the fact that there has been a £3.1 billion cut to Scotland’s budget since 2010? It is appalling that people representing Scotland in the Chamber today are attempting to ignore that.

[Chris Stephens]

My hon. Friend is right. The facts speak for themselves.

I am reminded of the speech I made in the Chamber less than two weeks ago on the Budget, in which I said:

“The only difference between this Chancellor and the previous one is that of style, not substance. Where George Osborne could best be described as a tin of gloss, superficially painting over the cracks in our broken economy, the current Chancellor is the tin of matt, hoping to hide the worst lumps and bumps with repeated applications of more of the same. Either way, they are both the same shade of Tory austerity blue”.—[Official Report, 23 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 1255.]

As a former treasurer of Glasgow city Unison, I know all too well that trade unions have a welfare fund, which is an important aspect of membership and the recruiting of public sector workers. That branch’s accounts show that from 2010 to 2015, there was a year-on-year increase in spending of that welfare fund. Is that because the pay did not quite match the increases in food, housing and fuel costs? Of course it is.

Today, the average household has lost £7.74 per week due to higher prices for goods, including bread, milk and cheese. The Trussell Trust statistics tell us that in 2010, it delivered 61,400 emergency food parcels to hungry people. Today’s figure, which the Trussell Trust released last month, is 1,182,594 food parcels. All the evidence suggests that many of those going to food banks are, in actual fact, public sector workers.

Despite all the hints, the Budget failed to lift the public sector pay cap. With inflation at a five-year high of 3%, the value of public sector wages has collapsed. In 2017, the civil service people survey, referred to by the hon. Member for North Tyneside, has shown that satisfaction with pay and conditions has fallen and now stands at 30%.

The Government’s solution is to park the issue with pay review bodies. The problem with that approach is that 55% of public sector workers in the UK are not covered by a pay review body. They include jobcentre workers, who administer our social security and pensions system; those who staff our borders, working in immigration and asylum services; civilians in the Ministry of Defence, providing equipment and support to our armed services; and, of course, workers in the national health service and local government.

In November 2015, I secured an Adjournment debate to demonstrate the low pay in the Department for Work and Pensions. Over 40% of its employees were receiving tax credits. As a result of that debate, the Government had no option but to negotiate with the PCS a wage rise for staff in that Department.

Of course, there is the Treasury pay remit, which covers about 400,000 workers. This is the so-called delegated pay system—a notional arrangement whereby Departments and agencies are individual employers responsible for negotiating pay and conditions. Although the remit is “guidance” for civil service departmental employers and other bargaining units, it does set a pay cap framework.

That was not always the case. In fact, national pay bargaining was first introduced in the civil service in 1919, and that position held for more than 70 years until the then Conservative Government, over a period between 1994 and 1996, broke it up and delegated responsibility to individual departmental employers. The reality is not only that it is incredibly wasteful and time consuming to hold hundreds of sets of negotiations about an issue decided and controlled centrally, but that that has led to inequalities whereby staff at similar grades across Departments, and even across agencies within the same sponsor Department, are paid vastly different salaries.

A real danger of the Government’s current approach is that it will increase the gender pay gap, because it is clear that so far the Government have announced the ending of the pay cap for those services that are male dominated, and those Departments that are female dominated do not yet see evidence that the public sector pay cap will be lifted. That is a very dangerous route for the Government to go down.

[Luke Graham]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Stephens]

I am not your friend, but I will give way.

[Luke Graham]

I thought we got on so well! I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me a second time. I supported the pay cap review, both in London and in Edinburgh, as did many Government Members, and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has announced the lifting of the pay cap to allow flexibility. My question to the hon. Gentleman—perhaps he is coming to this—is: what should the percentage actually be, and can he give us a trailer of what will be announced in the forthcoming Budget at Holyrood?

[Chris Stephens]

The last point is well above my pay grade, but I will say this to the hon. Gentleman. It is not for me to determine what the percentage is. That should be negotiated. But the Government should not impose a cap of 1% and then say to individuals, “It’s either that or hit the cobblestones and take industrial action,” particularly given that they passed anti-trade union legislation—the Trade Union Act 2016—making industrial action even more difficult on a national scale.

There is a clear and sustained argument about the clear economic benefits of lifting the public sector pay cap. There would be a positive stimulus in the economy through increased household consumer spending. That would be likely to increase GDP and tax receipts, reducing the overall cost to Government still further. Estimates show that the effect of increased public sector pay would be similar to that of a decrease in income tax. The findings by the TUC and the Institute for Public Policy Research show that the significant portion of funding required to lift the public sector pay cap would in fact be returned to the Treasury almost immediately in the form of higher tax receipts and lower welfare payments. The initial cost per year in 2019-20 of uprating public sector pay in line with the consumer prices index for two years would be £5.8 billion compared with the cost had the cap remained in place. However, that drops to £3.55 billion once higher receipts from income tax and national insurance and lower welfare payments for means-tested benefits are taken into account.

It will be left to the devolved Administrations to take a different path. The Scottish Government have said that they will remove the 1% pay cap. This petition calls for the UK Government to fully fund a pay rise. I say again that it should not be left to a Department, a devolved Administration, a local authority or a health board to find the money from its own resources. Should the Government not look positively on this petition, I can guarantee the Minister that Scottish National party MPs will put pressure on the Government to ensure that they do that, and we will continue to campaign for public sector workers, not just in Scotland but across these islands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

Any public sector worker, whether somebody in the military, a nurse, a refuse worker, a teacher or social worker, the five-odd million of them all deserve the pay rise. If the hon. Member’s constituents in GCHQ need a pay rise, I will support them—will he? I am not sure he will.

Meanwhile, nurses, firefighters and border guards will face losing more than £2,500. The cap is not working. There is a situation where households will have one partner working in the public sector and somebody else in the private sector. It is typical: divide the public sector from the private sector. Homes do not work like that. As I said, if one person is working in the public and another in the private sector, should one subsidise the other? Should the wife subsidise the husband? Should the brother subsidise the sister? No. It is absolutely iniquitous and it should stop now. The Government’s continued support of the cap is economically nonsensical. The party of economic confidence, of business—the nonsensical party as far as I am concerned.

[Chris Stephens]

Now that the Conservatives have found their voice in this debate, does my hon. Friend agree that we should find the elusive Conservative who agrees that the public sector pay cap should be lifted?

[Peter Dowd]

Trying to find a Conservative who practically believes that—you are more likely to find, if you will excuse the expression, rocking horse dung, quite frankly. There is more chance of finding that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Jones]

I will get going first, and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

Members also raised the paradise papers—the tax evasion papers. We have not actually seen those papers yet, because they would not be provided to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, but the point remains. Should we be bearing down on anybody who is not paying their fair share of taxes? Absolutely, and that is why this Government have taken more action to do so than any other Government in history and have raised £160 billion from it since 2010.

Many Members have paid tribute to those in our public services, and I would simply agree. Within our society, public sector workers are among the most hard-working, talented and committed people. There are more than 5 million public sector workers right now, right across the UK. They carry out essential roles: they keep our streets safe; they teach our children; and they work day and night in our hospitals. At Christmas time in particular, they will be working when many others are enjoying time off with their families, and we should pay tribute to them for that and recognise their contribution. We should also recognise the contribution of those working overseas, who see their families even less frequently. The hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) said that they go the extra mile and deserve respect, and I entirely agree. But the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), who I do not think is still in his seat, said that those on the Government side of the House see them as the enemy, and I am afraid that is just wrong. I do not think that anybody sees our public servants as the enemy.

[Chris Stephens]

Does the Minister believe that when a Government pay their own workforce decently the whole country benefits from the increased tax revenue generated and the increased spending it allows?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Jones]

I am not entirely sure that the Labour election manifesto, which claimed that their policies were fully funded, was 100% accurate. Perhaps we could go back to some of the rather awkward interviews that the shadow Chancellor gave in the media over the weekend.

[Chris Stephens]

The Minister talked about the size of the pay bill. Have the Government done any research on its size and how much activity that has generated in the wider economy?

[Andrew Jones]

The hon. Gentleman asked whether the Government have done research on the size of the pay bill; I have just detailed the numbers. We are acutely aware of how public spending has an impact across the country. Any expenditure has an impact on the local economy as money recirculates, so of course that point is understood.

Budget Resolutions

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I am worried about making sure, as you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, that other people are fully involved.

The Chancellor was able to offer nothing for these staff. The cap is not being removed, because, as the Treasury briefed once the Chancellor sat down, any pay rises the pay review boards offer above 1% must be taken from existing budgets. It is a derisory offer to make after seven years of real-terms pay cuts. Worse than that, for NHS nurses, any additional pay will be linked to “Agenda for Change” modernisation, which really means threatening their working conditions—tearing up their terms and conditions of pay.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Is it not also a con, because 55% of civil servants’ pay is not covered by a pay review body?

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly it. That is how the Government, up until now, have avoided their responsibility to ensure that civil servants have a proper pay rise.

For those in social care, with the system still approaching what the Care Quality Commission calls “tipping point”, the Chancellor has not offered a single penny either.

Let me turn to the environment. The Chancellor had a few choice words about electric cars yesterday—I thought a driverless car was a wonderful metaphor. However, on the bigger picture, the Budget is potentially disastrous. The fact that there will be no new low-carbon electricity levies until 2025 could spell the end of much of the low-carbon development in the UK. There was not a single mention in the Chancellor’s speech of renewables, sustainable sources of energy or investment in domestic energy efficiency. It is quite clear that, beyond a few gimmicks, this issue is not, in any sense, a priority for the Government.

The Chancellor referred extensively to technological change, which offers huge potential for our economy and our society if we are prepared to commit to the investment needed. However, it was a Conservative-led Government, of which the Chancellor was a member, that cut research funding by £1 billion in real terms. Unlike the Chancellor and his party, Labour Members know that realising the possibilities of new technology will require a Government committed to providing the funding and long-term investment needed—not a Government, like this one, repackaging existing announcements on fibre optics and 5G in consecutive Budgets, and not one who re-allocates funds they allocated a year ago in the autumn statement, claiming it is new research funding. The Government say they aim to reach the OECD average of 2.4% of GDP spent on R and D by 2027, but after years of languishing below that level, Britain should be aiming to be above the OECD average, rather than belatedly hitting it a decade from now. Even the target displays a lack of ambition and foresight.

The Government have the same problem with Brexit. They never planned for it before the referendum, and they cannot see beyond their own slogans after it. Some 17 months after the referendum result, there is not a single agreement with the EU on any point. The Government are lurching towards the hardest possible Brexit, ripping up our existing relationship with our closest trading partners, instead of trying to work to create a new relationship.

Every major business group has begged the Government to take a different approach—from the CBI to the EEF to the British Chambers of Commerce. Already, businesses are pulling back investment for fear of what might come. So this Government do not just lack ambition: they will not listen to advice and cannot seem to see just how disastrous a cliff-edge plunge out of the EU would be for our economy.

The Chancellor trailed this Budget as making Britain “fit for the future”. What it actually demonstrated, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) North said yesterday, is that this is a Government no longer fit for office—too divided to deliver. The Budget demonstrated that this is increasingly a Government without purpose, divided and in disarray, whose confidence is sapped and whose time is up. I just say to them: it is better to go with a bit of dignity—just go with a bit of dignity!—rather than humiliating disintegration. Labour is ready and willing to form the Government that this country needs, rather than this shambles that cannot even be described as a Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

The only difference between this Chancellor and the previous one is that of style, not substance. Where George Osborne could best be described as a tin of gloss, superficially painting over the cracks in our broken economy, the current Chancellor is the tin of matt, hoping to hide the worst lumps and bumps with repeated applications of more of the same. Either way, they are both the same shade of Tory austerity blue, with their repeated failure to recognise that the best way to grow the economy and improve productivity is to invest, to support workers, and to listen to those on the frontline and give them a pay rise. Instead, as fat cat—sorry, executive—pay continues to soar, and the bonus culture never seems to extend to frontline workers, the measures to support working people and vulnerable people in the Budget are yet again meagre, lacklustre and dismal.

Let us start with those starting out in the world of work and take it from there. Let us look at the minimum wage rises proposed in this Budget: 15p per hour for 16 to 17-year-olds, 20p per hour for apprentices, 30p per hour for 18 to 25-year-olds and 33p for the over-25s. That maintains and widens the inequality gap for young people doing the same job as those who are 26 or over.

On public sector pay, pages 68 to 69 of the Red Book can only be described as a pathetic, poor response, especially in the light of raised expectations on public sector pay—warm words and no action, except stalling for time. Let us look at some of the facts on pay review bodies, which is where the Government are now going to park the issue of public sector pay. The Government are batting this issue into the next financial year, with reviews not pledges. There is no actual funding on the table; there is just a reference to writing to ask the pay review bodies to start the process. That is so vague as to be almost meaningless.

Some 55% of public sector workers are not covered by pay review bodies. There is no pay review body for civil service workers below the senior grades—for the avoidance of doubt, these are the very workers who collect the taxes and who try to make the benefits system and the asylum and immigration system work. They are the frontline workers the Government have a duty of care for as an employer. And that is before we even get to the emergency services, the NHS and local government.

All is far from well, though, in the private sector. The statistics may show that pay has overtaken that in the public sector—as a result of the prolonged pay cap this Government cruelly pretended to be about to lift, but instead chose to drag out to ensure a miserable Christmas for the “just about managing”—but precarious work underpins the rise in employment statistics. The Government proposed a timid report, which has now been firmly kicked into the long grass with the announcement of a further review of that review. I do love the part in the Budget report that says that the Government will publish a discussion paper and

“recognises that this is an important and complex issue, and…will work with stakeholders to ensure that any potential changes are considered carefully”—

a “Yes Minister” line if ever I saw one.

It is appropriate on this big American holiday of Thanksgiving to quote the famous song from the classic Bing Crosby film “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, which describes the Government’s approach to tackling workplace issues and in-work poverty:

“We’re busy doin’ nothin’

Workin’ the whole day through

Tryin’ to find lots of things not to do

We’re busy goin’ nowhere”.

On their journey through the world of work, many people find that their job disappears through no fault of their own, or that they have to claim benefits due to life-threatening illness or chronic conditions. Welcome to Alice in Wonderland time, as they disappear down the rabbit hole into the topsy-turvy world of a benefits system that bears no relation to the po-faced announcements about how well it is working or the good intent behind the slashing of budgets. I wonder whether every Conservative Member trotting out the Government’s line about universal credit would survive if they had to go through the process tomorrow. I am willing to bet that full service roll-out has not yet happened in their constituencies.

I note that there is to be a slowdown of a couple of months in the roll-out, but not a pause. Glasgow will be the last area in the universal credit roll-out—not least, I suspect, because some in the Department for Work and Pensions know what an unholy mess of misery the policy is.

When someone gets to the end of their working life, what happens if they are a woman born in the 1950s? I received a letter from a constituent last week that was sadly typical. Born at the end of 1954, she was a single woman who had worked her entire life in low-paid, insecure work with no occupational pension or savings. She was facing the prospect of navigating the benefits system for the first time in her life. It is a disgrace that there was nothing about the WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—in the Budget, and I hope that the Government will sort that out and sort it quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am delighted to be able to speak in this Budget debate on the issues of public services and housing, both of which are intertwined in defining quality of life. They are key aspects of what should have been a Budget for people and prosperity. Unfortunately, this chaotic Tory Government just limp on in crisis and have failed to deliver on either.

One way to inject further funds into public services in Scotland would be to pay Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in full the £140 million they are due in backdated VAT. I welcome, of course, the announcement that the Chancellor made yesterday, but if the logic of the argument is true today and yesterday, it must have been true in 2015, when we submitted it as an amendment to that Finance Bill, and it must have been true when the Scottish Government made numerous and lengthy representations to the UK Government on this matter prior to, during, after and since the implementation of the single services. I have read those representations, and it is absolutely clear that discretion has always rested with those who make the rules: the UK Treasury. We see that in the announcement yesterday. The Government could have saved not only money, but a good deal of civil service time and effort if they had conceded this point six years ago. The Tories and Labour in Scotland have supported the establishment of Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in their manifestos. Support for the principle of single services is not in dispute.

In October, Chancellor stated:

“We discussed this with the Scottish Government before they made the decision to unify the police, we warned them that under EU law they would not be able to recover VAT if they made this move, the Scottish Government told us that they had calculated that the savings they would make would be sufficiently great that even with the loss of the VAT recovery ability it was still a sensible thing to do—that’s their decision, a decision which they made, and we are now constrained by the VAT rules that are in place.”

Was the Chancellor misleading the public when he stated that to drop the VAT would break EU law?

Moreover, Murdo Fraser MSP, who was clamped gloriously today by Nicola Sturgeon, stated that

“because both Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are not part funded through local taxation, there is no justification for a VAT refund.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 31 October 2017; c. 77.]

It seems entirely unclear as to why the Scottish Conservatives believed that there was no justification to scrap the VAT then, even a few weeks ago, yet now advocate it and actively celebrate it.

I also noticed, buried away on page 39 of the Budget Red Book—it is getting shorter, because the Government used to hide things on page 88 back in 2015—that there is a change relating to VAT for combined authorities and fire services in England and Wales. This is very interesting. At the top of page 39, under the heading “combined authorities” it states:

“Through Finance Bill 2017-18, legislation will be amended to ensure UK Combined Authorities and certain fire services in England and Wales will be eligible for VAT refunds.”

How curious! Could it be that the Chancellor realised that he could not possibly make these changes for English bodies without accepting the logic for changes in Scotland? If so, claims of influence from the baker’s dozen on the Benches across from me have less substance than a cream puff. This UK Government, having accepted the logic as they did for Highways England, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and academy schools, must now make good their mistake and backdate the VAT.

There is a gaping hole in this Budget where there ought to be a commitment from the Chancellor to scrapping the public sector pay cap. Public services workers have, for years, been asked to deliver more for less, all the while seeing the cost of living increase. The Scottish Government are the only Government on these islands committed to scrapping the cap. I had hoped that, given the demonstrations, the pressure, the commitment and the U-turns, the Chancellor would have been bold and put a figure on this, rather than giving us what was in his mealy-mouthed speech yesterday.

[Chris Stephens]

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that the UK Government’s approach to public sector pay is such that those in male-dominated workplaces will get a pay rise but those in female-dominated workplaces will not?

[Alison Thewliss]

As on so many related issues, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The UK Government should commit, as the Scottish Government have, to paying the real living wage—not the pretendy living wage, not the living wage that does not apply to those under 25, not the in-built age discrimination that they continue to perpetuate, but the real living wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation.

We cannot hide from the fact that workers need a pay increase, because prices are up in a range of areas. The price of basics like bread and butter have increased—bread by 5% and butter by 12%—since the Brexit vote. This is just another example of the Government forcing people to spread too thinly—literally—to get by. The London School of Economics estimated this week that the average household has lost £7.74 per week because of the higher prices in shopping baskets. Ask anyone at the supermarket and they will tell you the same, and it feels like an awful lot more to many people.

I note from the Red Book that the full basic state pension will rise by only £3.65 per week and the full new state pension by only £4.80 per week. That hardly seems enough to meet the increase in the cost of living caused by the Government’s chaotic Brexit obsession. Contrast that with the £82.2 million in sovereign grant funding going to two pensioners and their hingers-oan who live along the road from this building, and it is clear that unfairness is rife in this country. The impact of a no-deal Brexit and the lack of single-market membership will only make things worse.

We cannot deliver the public services on which we all rely without well-paid and well-motivated public sector workers. We must end the pay cap and deliver pay certainty for public sector workers right across the board, not just for those in the NHS, because as hard as they work, there are many others who work just as hard.

We must see appropriate consequentials. I mentioned the money the Chancellor trumpeted for the NHS—some £300 million. If the Government were being fair, Scotland should have had £30 million, but we are getting only £8 million. That is jiggery-pokery of the highest order. We have also lost £600 million for our trains in the Tories’ great train robbery. I ask for that to be put right as soon as possible.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I will get back to the hon. Lady on that.

We know that tax is important for our public services, and we know, as the right hon. Member for Barking rightly stressed, that it is important that the Government act, and be seen to act, when we come across aggressive tax avoidance and evasion. As my hon. Friends on this side of the House have eloquently pointed out, we have a very strong track record in that respect. We have raised £160 billion in additional revenues as a consequence of clamping down on tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance since 2010. We have also brought in £2.8 billion by tracking down those who have sought to inappropriately hide their finances in overseas tax jurisdictions. We have brought in £28.9 billion in additional compliance yield in the last 12 months alone, too.

The right hon. Lady is rightly critical of the performance of the last Labour Government; she raised that this afternoon and raised the same point in last week’s Adjournment debate. The tax gap is the difference between what we could potentially bring in by way of tax and what we actually bring in, and it currently stands at 6%, which is a historical low—a world-beating figure. If the average tax gap today was the same as under the last Labour Government, there would be £45 billion less in our Exchequer—£45 billion not there for those vital public services that the right hon. Lady is keen to discuss.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

On the Government’s record, can the Minister confirm that HMRC informed the Public and Commercial Services Union that in 2017 the equivalent of 17,000 years of staff experience is leaving the department? How will that help the Government’s record going forward in dealing with tax evasion and avoidance?

[Mel Stride]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of investment in HMRC, because we have a very good record in that respect. Some £1.8 billion of additional money has been invested in HMRC since 2010, of which £800 million will relate to the period after 2015, bringing in £7.2 billion by 2020-21. We will also be trebling the number of investigations of the wealthy to ensure they are paying their appropriate level of tax, as a direct consequence of all that additional investment.

[Mel Stride]

I challenge those figures: a far larger number than the hon. Gentleman suggests are engaged in clamping down on tax evasion and avoidance. About 50% of the 2,100 largest corporations in this country are under investigation at any one time—not necessarily because they have done anything wrong, but because they have complex tax affairs. So we are investing in that.

[Chris Stephens]

Can the Minister confirm to the House that he answered a question to me yesterday by saying that 522 employees were in the high net worth unit on 31 March 2017, and that that compares with 4,045 full-time equivalents in DWP chasing social security fraud?

[Mel Stride]

This Government have an exemplary record on the tax take from the wealthiest in this country. The wealthiest 1% pay about 28% of all income tax. Under the last Labour Government that figure was below 24%, so I will not take any lectures from the Opposition parties on this.

Autumn Adjournment

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I thank him, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and all members of the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that matters that are important to Back Benchers are regularly debated in this House. I will be touching on such matters in my contribution.

Tomorrow, it will be five months since the general election. I have tried to continue to be a left-wing, anti-austerity Member of Parliament, and to serve the constituents of Glasgow South West to the best of my ability. Being a Member of Parliament is an honour and a privilege. It is a job in which we should highlight our constituents’ concerns and celebrate constituency successes, such as those set out in several early-day motions. Early-day motion 349 congratulates all involved with the Govan stones, which continue to win archaeological awards and are one of the six hidden gems in Scotland. The Govan stones are a unique collection of early medieval stones found in the Govan old church. Hon. Members are more than welcome in Govan, and I hope that they will all take the opportunity to see those stones.

The work of the Coming Home Centre is celebrated in early-day motion 499. The centre assists military veterans, providing practical advice, furniture and food, and it gives a daily hot meal to the hundreds of veterans in Glasgow who require assistance to adjust back into civilian life. The 50th anniversary of the opening of the Bellahouston sports centre is commemorated in early-day motion 459, and the awarding of the Glasgow Saltire Award to young volunteers from St. Angela’s Participation Centre in Darnley is mentioned in early-day motion 411.

One seasoned parliamentarian put it to me that this debate is nicknamed the “moanfest”.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Michael Ellis)]

indicated dissent.

[Chris Stephens]

The Deputy Leader of the House shakes his head in disbelief. On the basis of that nickname, I wish to raise a number of issues, the first of which concerns the process for parliamentary questions. One of the frustrations of the job of being a Member of Parliament is that we regularly receive answers from Ministers that end with the catch-all phrase “disproportionate cost”. That often happens when information requested in a parliamentary question has already been provided under freedom of information procedures. In such cases, it is quite confusing to receive responses from Ministers stating that information can be provided only at disproportionate cost. I fear that if I were to table a parliamentary question to the Deputy Leader of the House asking how many parliamentary answers end with the phrase “disproportionate cost”, the response might very well be that that information can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

I also want to raise the question of the cost of telephone calls to Departments, which the Deputy Leader of the House will have heard me raise many times at business questions. As a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State say that telephone calls to his Department will be free by the end of the year. The Deputy Leader of the House will be aware that I have raised that issue for more than two years. However, that does not affect other Departments, including the Home Office, which runs the spousal visa hotline. Will the Government explain how my constituent Amera Hussain, who has telephoned that hotline twice in the past month, has received a phone bill outlining that the total cost of those two telephone calls was £28.77? The Home Office says that the spousal visa hotline charges £1.37 a minute, over and above network charges, but it has also said in response to a parliamentary question I tabled that that should apply only to non-UK residents. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will ask the Home Office why UK residents are being charged such premium, astronomical rates to telephone a Department.

I want to raise a general point about enforcement, because there has started to be a real focus on that since the election in June. I will cite some of the figures revealed by the Government in answer to parliamentary questions. At present, 399 staff members are working in the national minimum wage compliance unit, yet it has 83 vacancies, and the Government have intimated that they have no plans to fill them. Is it any wonder that there are 200,000 workers in the United Kingdom who are not being paid the national minimum wage when there are so many vacancies in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs compliance unit?

I asked Ministers yesterday to confirm whether there were 420 HMRC staff in the high net worth unit, which deals with tax avoidance and evasion. Last year, it was revealed that there were 420 staff in that unit, with 700 in the affluent unit. I have been told by the Government today that those two sections of HMRC have been combined, so I was expecting to hear that there were 1,120 staff working in the merged unit. However, I have been told that there are only 1,040 staff, so it seems to me that there has been a reduction in the number of HMRC staff dealing with tax avoidance and evasion. In addition to that, given the office closures, in 2017 alone HMRC will lose 17,000 years of staff experience, which will surely lead to a decrease in enforcement.

Such a reduction does not, of course, apply to chasing social security fraud. As I said in the House yesterday, the latest figures show that 3,605 employees in the Department for Work and Pensions are chasing social security fraud. I have been told today in a written answer that the figure for full-time equivalents is actually 4,045. If 4,045 employees can chase social security fraud estimated at £1.2 billion, just imagine how much money HMRC could bring in if it had 4,045 employees chasing tax avoidance and evasion.

We need to ensure the House is always pursuing how to help the most vulnerable in our society. Today’s Trussell Trust report exposes the real situation in our communities where universal credit has been rolled out, with food bank use up by 30% in those areas. I am clear that food banks are not and do not wish to be part of the social security system. In my constituency of Glasgow South West alone, there has been a 56% increase in food bank use in the past year. That is why my constituency office will now be a collection point for those who wish to make cash or food donations to my constituents.

Real poverty is on the rise and wages are low. As the Member for the constituency with the largest percentage of public sector workers, I hope that the Government will give such workers a real wage rise shortly. The job of all of us is to hold the Government to account, and I hope that they will, in the weeks and months ahead, address the many challenges that our people face.