National Insurance Contributions Bill

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

That, too, is a theory, but I am not sure that it is necessarily persuasive. When we fought the previous general election, the Labour Government’s big policy for deficit reduction, among a pretty thin set of policies, was a big increase in national insurance contributions. We have already reversed the worst effects of that, and the Bill is a further measure that will help businesses up and down the country to create jobs.

The hon. Member for Bolton West is referring to one element of Labour’s five-point plan, which we do not hear much about any more, but there were serious problems with Labour’s proposal; this one is very different from that. It was a much more targeted scheme aimed at smaller employers taking on new employees, which raised all sorts of practical questions about how to define a new employee and how to prevent there being perverse incentives. I put it to the House that that scheme was neither workable nor likely to achieve its objectives. I suspect that we shall return to that issue.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

While the Labour Whips hunt for a seventh dwarf—

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

Cheeky!

[Christopher Pincher]

No, I am definitely Bashful. Cheeky is probably on the other side of the House.

Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the key component—the most important innovation in the proposal—is the fact that it encourages confidence among businesses, particularly small businesses? I held a jobs fair a couple of weeks ago and 500 jobs, part-time and full-time, were available. Many small businesses at the fair thought that cutting their tax through this measure was the right thing to do.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to hear of the experience in Tamworth, and my hon. Friend is right to raise that point. Particularly for those small employers taking on their first person, the fact that they do not have to pay employer’s national insurance contributions at 13.8% will help them. In many cases, the Bill will have exactly that effect. I welcome what appears to be broad support for the measure.

Economic Growth

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

As I said, I want to see the borrowing coming down, and it is not coming down because this Chancellor has flatlined the economy. We have had almost no growth since 2010 and the result is that he is borrowing £245 billion more.

I have made speeches in the last two Queen’s Speech debates: I have said that there should be a temporary VAT cut, which would cost £12 billion. I have called for a national insurance cut, VAT at 5% and for infrastructure investment to be brought forward. If those things had been done, borrowing would be coming down now; under this Chancellor, it is not. The economy has flatlined and the deficit reduction plan has flatlined as well.

With the IMF here in town, what the Government should do is listen to the IMF chief economist, who says they are “playing with fire”. The IMF has said they should slow the pace of deficit reduction, stimulate the economy and get growth moving to get the deficit down. That is what the Government should do.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Is that the “borrow, borrow, borrow” advice that the shadow Chancellor gave to the President of France, whose deficit is well above the EU average and whose economy has shrunk by 0.2%? Is that the kind of advice he is giving to his fraternal friend?

[Ed Balls]

The EU produced the latest growth figures today. The figures for France are disappointing. France has gone into recession. It is in the eurozone, trapped in austerity, and its economy is not growing. I looked at the figures today to see what French growth had been since the Chancellor’s spending review compared with the UK. Since the spending review in 2010, growth in France has been 1.1% and growth in the UK has been 1.1% as well, compared with Germany, which has had three times more growth, and America, which has had four times more growth. The eurozone is locked into austerity by virtue of those countries’ membership of the single currency. Our Chancellor imposed on our economy austerity that went too far, too fast, and what has happened? He has delivered the same growth performance over the last two years as that of the French economy, well behind that of Germany and America, where, as we now know, the deficit is coming down.

Autumn Statement

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Half a dozen European Ministers, from within the eurozone and outside it, have stated in terms that they do not believe that growth should be used as a pretext for running up more and more debt. Does my right hon. Friend agree that those Ministers show a degree of foresight and common sense that is sadly lacking in the shadow Chancellor?

[Mr Osborne]

That powerful point was made by the Finance Ministers of not only Germany and Sweden but some of the Baltic states. One of the tragedies of British economic management under the last Government is that we went into the crisis with a huge structural deficit. The International Monetary Fund has now assessed that Britain carried the largest structural deficit of any major western economy going into the banking crash, yet extraordinarily the shadow Chancellor goes around saying that there was no structural deficit. If we had managed our public finances like Germany, for example, we would be in better shape.

Fuel Duty

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The motion mentions tax avoidance—he really should read his own party’s motion. The number of HMRC employees went down from 96,000 to 66,000 under his Government.

Labour Members had 13 years to clamp down more widely on tax avoidance. They had 13 years to do what they are calling for today. Did they take that chance? No. There were 13 years of inaction, and a consultation gathering dust in the Treasury archives. Even then, their figures simply do not add up. They claim that clamping down on this tax relief would bring in £650 million, but figures released while they were in power show it would bring in significantly less. If they ever want to regain credibility on the economy, they need to apologise for the mess in which they left the economy and learn to stop making irresponsible, unfunded promises.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Only the deluded or those who want to avoid tax will oppose the closing of tax loopholes. Many people have criticised some companies for avoiding tax, but a company called Stemcor pays only £163,000 from the £65 million of profits it makes each year—about 0.1% of its revenues. If companies are to be criticised, should not Stemcor be criticised?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. It would not be appropriate for me to talk about any individual company, but he makes a good point. Any company that is engaged in aggressive tax avoidance needs to explain itself.

Tax avoidance ran rife under Labour. We have taken action. We are investing £900 million to tackle tax avoidance and evasion, which will deliver £7 billion a year by 2014. We have already signed a groundbreaking agreement with Switzerland to make it much more difficult to evade tax. In March this year, HMRC closed a business property loss scheme within a week of its disclosure. At the G20, the Chancellor and his German counterpart announced concerted co-operation to close gaps in international standards and to crack down on international tax avoidance. Labour's former City Minister, Lord Myners, was on the radio only this morning welcoming this progress.

Underpinning all this progress, we are introducing a general anti-abuse rule so that no one can follow the letter of the law but abuse the spirit and get away with it—something else on which the Labour party never delivered. This is what real action on tax avoidance looks like.

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[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash). I gently point out to her that there are twice as many Government Back Benchers here tonight than Labour Back Benchers, and that is for an Opposition day debate, but we will let that one lie.

It is great pleasure to participate in this debate, and I congratulate the Opposition on tabling this motion, because it gives us all an opportunity to stand back and admire the brazen brass neck, the unbridled cynicism and the naked opportunism that characterises it. It seems that the shadow Chancellor is almost congenitally unable to stand and watch a bandwagon pass by without having the urge to jump aboard it. However, it seems that he has been overtaken with uncharacteristic modesty this evening, because he is not here; he has fallen silent. For the past few days he has been beating his chest, beating the drum and complaining about fuel duty increases, but now, this evening, he has donned the mantle of the mute. A week after Guy Fawkes night, he has lit the blue touch paper and withdrawn to a safe distance, leaving his ciphers and his sidekicks to propose and support his motion—and well he might, because we have heard a chorus of amnesia from Labour Members. We have heard them speak forgetting all they have done in the past, forgetting what they are saying while they are saying it and forgetting everything they have said when they have sat down. But we will not forget: we will not forget the meagre 75p increase in pensions; we will not forget the 12 hikes in fuel duty; and we will not forget the increase in fuel poverty between 2004 and 2009. I want to touch on that issue, because during Labour’s tenure—

[Bill Esterson]

According to the House of Commons Library, the proportion of a litre of fuel paid in tax rose from 59% to 75% between 1990 and 1997, whereas between 1997 and 2010 it fell back to 65%. Does the hon. Gentleman accept those figures?

[Christopher Pincher]

All I will confirm is that fuel duty would have increased many more times had Labour’s Budget been implemented and that 2.8 million more people fell into fuel poverty between 2004 and 2010 as a result of the policies that the Labour Government pursued. The fact of the matter is that energy prices went up on the watch of the Leader of the Opposition, when he was Secretary of State—that is all he did; he stood there and watched as millions more people fell into fuel poverty.

I am pleased to say that in my constituency fuel poverty has fallen by 5% in the past year or so, and we estimate that by 2020 it will have fallen by about 25%. Thanks to the Government introducing and increasing the cold weather payments, and thanks to the discount of about £120 a year that will help 600,000 vulnerable pensioners, these people will be better off. The Government are helping them, but it is not enough. If we try to stick sticking plaster over a problem such as fuel poverty, we will not resolve it. That is like treating pneumonia with Angiers junior aspirin. What we really need to do is get to the actual causes of fuel poverty. In the 10 years between 2000 and 2010, under the previous Labour Government, £25 billion was spent on trying to alleviate fuel poverty yet the increases in fuel prices swamped those measures. Now, three quarters of those who live in the most energy-inefficient homes are in fuel poverty compared with one in 20 of those living in the most energy-efficient.

If we are serious about dealing with the problem of fuel poverty and dealing with one of the greatest challenges in the cost of living, we need to get a grip on the demand side of the equation. That means ensuring that homes are properly insulated. Not only that, but they should have proper and modern boilers and smart meters so that people can for the first time take control of their energy demands and reduce them. That is what the green deal is all about.

We need also to deal with the supply side of the energy equation. A generation ago, there were 15 energy suppliers, but that number has now reduced to just six. A generation ago, energy bills were relatively straightforward but now people are confused by an array of tariffs. A generation ago, 75% of people rarely if ever switched their energy suppliers. That is still the case. If we are serious about dealing with one of the biggest challenges and biggest drains on people’s means, we need to deal with energy costs.

I hope that the Government’s proposals in the draft Energy Bill, to which I look forward, will ensure that people are put on the best and cheapest tariffs and that we invest in new nuclear and shale gas, which Labour left behind for 10 years, so that we secure our energy supply and are not exposed to international gas and hydrocarbon volatility, which has caused so much distress to bill payers over the past 10 years. The Government must also be careful in that Bill, because although we need to ensure that we have a sufficient, resilient and diverse supply of energy, we must ensure that the mechanism to deliver that capacity does not place undue burdens on the industry that will deliver it.

The industry reckons that the capacity mechanism could increase its costs, which it could pass on, by anywhere between £3 billion and £13 billion, meaning that anywhere north of £14 a year could be added to energy bills. We need to ensure that the Energy Bill does not have the perverse effect of adding to energy bills as it tries to reduce them. I hope that the Minister will pass on that message to his colleagues in the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

For the moment, let us thank the Labour party for tabling the motion and enjoy the theatre of the absurd. It is an absurd prospect: the Labour party introduced the fuel duty escalator, increased fuel duty and wanted to hike it again if it won the last election, but it is now proposing to freeze fuel duty by closing the tax loopholes that its own labyrinthine Treasury policies allowed. I am sure that the Chancellor is aware of the cost to the country of fuel duty, but I think that the country is also aware of the cost to it of the previous Labour Government—a grisly experiment that it will not want to repeat.

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[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

As the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) is gathering votes from Government Members as we sit here, we find out that she lasted only five minutes of a bush tucker trial. Meanwhile, back in the real world, her constituents and mine are suffering grievously because of the cuts in living standards that have resulted from the Conservative party’s economic policies. The real struggle of many of our constituents stands in stark contrast to her outrageous behaviour. The impact of fuel prices is one of many worries that have brought living standards under attack. I wonder how many people out there in the country think it is appropriate for a Member of this House to be away for five weeks—

[Christopher Pincher]

Like Gordon Brown.

[Bill Esterson]

And that is when the country faces the toughest economic situation of modern times—[Interruption.] Goodness knows what the hon. Lady’s constituents think, but what of her colleagues? Judging by their reaction to what I have just said, they clearly approve. They have all said that they want to scrap the fuel duty rise, but they will not vote for it. Maybe they should all be in Australia cheering on Nadine, rather than rejecting efforts to help all our constituents.

There are many pressures on living standards and a lot of money has been taken out of the economy, affecting businesses and jobs and delivering hardship for many people in this country. As I have said, it is extraordinary that Government Members will not vote for a measure that would do exactly what they all say they support.

Let me say a little about some of my constituents—the pensioners, working families, young people out of work and commuters—all of whom will be hit by the Government’s failure to cancel the fuel duty rise. Pensioners, some of whom have to choose between heating and eating, face increased food prices and, at the same time, will have to pay more for bus and taxi fares or, if they have a car—some pensioners do—they will find it very expensive to run. It is no wonder we are seeing more and more people relying on food banks. The Government tell pensioners to deal with rising energy costs by going on the internet and looking at uSwitch, but my pensioners tell me that most of them have never used a computer, let alone the internet, and so would not know where to start. How is that a solution to rising energy costs and falling living standards? You tell me, Madam Deputy Speaker, or perhaps the Minister can tell me when he winds up the debate. That is before the granny tax has taken money from pensioners to pay for tax cuts for millionaires. Then there was the young man whose building firm was wound up because he and his partner could not get any work. He now works in a shop for £6.50 an hour and barely has enough money coming in to put food on the table and pay the rent, let alone put fuel in his car.

The least we could do is to make some kind of move to help these people by cancelling the fuel tax increase. As I said in an earlier intervention, and as FairFuelUK has demonstrated, its effect would be a fall in GDP and a loss of 35,000 jobs, so no jobs would be created for the more than 1 million young people who are out of work. At the same time, the tax credit cuts will hit part-time workers, and that is where jobs are being created. Part-time jobs have increased, but not the full-time ones that would help to build prosperity. Many small businesses tell me that they are getting by with fewer staff who are working longer hours. HGV owner-drivers tell me that the cost of filling their lorries has gone up and up, and all those increased fuel costs have to be passed on, either through cuts in their own income or price rises that hit the living standards of those on the lowest incomes. VAT is up, fuel prices are up, food prices are up, energy prices are up, and taxes are up—except, of course, for those millionaires.

Tonight we, as the House of Commons, have an opportunity to vote to cancel the fuel duty rise, not least because of the impact that it would have in the coldest part of the year when people rely on fuel for their cars more than at any other time. The Government have an opportunity, if they choose, to do this by closing tax avoidance loopholes and targeting the Starbucks, Amazons and Googles of this world, thereby helping those whose living standards have suffered.

Beer Duty Escalator

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is absolutely right. Some 85% of pubs across this country are small and medium-sized enterprises—small businesses that are trickling that economic impact down into our communities.

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the statistics released today by CAMRA, which show that there is an alarming increase in the number of pub closures. We all thought that we had seen the back of the bad old days in 2010 when 26 pubs per week were closing, once the figure had fallen to 12 per week. However, the new figures released by CAMRA show that 18 pubs per week are closing. That means that since March this year some 450 pubs have closed, and since the introduction of the beer duty escalator in 2008 some 5,800 pubs have closed.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

A regrettable statistic—and I remember the days—is that one used to be able to buy six pints for a fiver. [Interruption.] I did not drink them all, I might say; I was buying a round. Since then, the cost of beer has increased and, as my hon. Friend says, the number of pubs that have gone to the wall and are going to the wall is increasing. As a result, revenue to the Exchequer is falling. Does he agree that the beer duty escalator is not simply raising money? It is losing money for the Exchequer.

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend has put his finger on the nub of the problem. I want to remind the House that when the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), introduced the beer duty escalator he said that,

“as incomes have risen, alcohol has become increasingly more affordable…In order to ensure that alcohol duties keep pace with rising incomes, alcohol duty rates will increase by 2 per cent above the rate of inflation”.

IMF

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I certainly agree that Germany and other countries need to live with the consequences of the euro, and the German taxpayer is now having to provide many hundreds of billions of euros to various funds.

My hon. Friend is right that many Conservative Members warned of the consequences of Britain joining the euro. I remember helping the then Leader of the Opposition write a speech that he delivered at Fontainebleau, which was immediately parodied by the then Government, led by Tony Blair, and the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), as deeply irresponsible. The then Conservative leader spelled out in that speech a lot of the consequences that have come to pass.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Harold Wilson famously said that a week is a long time in politics, so does my right hon. Friend agree, having seen the shadow Chancellor’s performance—he first supported decent funding for the IMF and then quickly appeared to criticise it—that it now appears that Labour’s Treasury team’s dictum is that a minute is a long time in politics?

[Mr George Osborne]

Unfortunately, the shadow Chancellor has not, in the 18 months that he has been doing that job, set out any kind of consistent and principle-based opposition to the Government. It is all over the place, and has ended up with the Labour party voting against an increase in IMF resources. If we asked people for one of the achievements of the three-year Brown Government, they would probably say, “The London G20 summit was about the only one,” and that was all about increasing IMF resources. The position that the shadow Chancellor has led the Labour into is a remarkable one.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. It is good to hear from a Member who is a little more in touch with the realities facing businesses up and down the country. As she points out, many small businesses are being starved of cash because the Project Merlin agreements for bank lending were not worth the paper they were written on, and at the same time the Government have done nothing in this Budget to help small businesses. The Opposition have proposed a national insurance holiday for all small businesses taking on new workers. That would go a long way towards trying to relieve some of the pressure on the small businesses that are struggling so much right now. The Opposition hope to see measures in the Finance Bill and the Budget to get the economy moving again, to give hard-pressed businesses and hard-working families a break and to give young people who are looking for work some hope for the future. We would be cutting national insurance contributions for small businesses taking on new workers, we would be cutting bills for hard-pressed families by reversing the Chancellor’s badly timed VAT increase, and we would be funding new jobs for young people and new investment in affordable house building by taxing excessive bank bonuses.

Hon. Members do not have to take our word for it—the damning judgment of the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility should really worry Members on the Government Benches. Box 3.1 on page 46 of its latest economic and fiscal outlook, headed “The economic effects of policy measures”, says that the only policy measure with a measurable economic effect is the cut in corporation tax, which it says will lead to an

“increase in the level of GDP of 0.1 per cent by the end of the forecast period.”

So in the whole Budget there is just one measure that will have any impact on growth whatever, and that is an impact of 0.1% in around five years’ time. Beyond that, the OBR says in its policy costings document:

“We have made no other material adjustments to the economy forecast as a result of Budget 2012 policy announcements.”

When it comes down to it, the measures in the Bill will do nothing to change the gloomy growth forecasts, nothing to ease the squeeze on living standards and family budgets, nothing to get businesses investing at the rate required to regain our place in the global economy, and nothing to create the new job opportunities that are so desperately needed by today’s younger generation. No, instead of taking serious steps that might help to make up the ground our economy is losing, the Chancellor and his Chief Secretary have turned from their failed experiment in expansionary fiscal contraction and resorted to the notorious Laffer curve as their latest excuse for an economic policy which hits hard-working families and rewards those who are already very wealthy. It is the last refuge of a Government who have lost any sense of purpose beyond the protection of privilege.

Those who are unfamiliar with the obscure corner of esoteric economic theory that is the Laffer curve might like to take a lesson from the Business Secretary who recently explained it. He said it was

“an all purpose, but weak, rationale for cutting the taxes of rich people”

which has

“been correctly dubbed ‘voodoo economics’.”

Indeed, he told his party conference—perhaps some hon. Members on the Government Benches remember this—that some people believe

“that if taxes on the wealthy are cut, new revenue will miraculously appear. I think their reasoning is this: all those British billionaires who demonstrate their patriotism by hiding from the taxman in Monaco or some Caribbean bolt hole will rush back to pay more tax but at a lower rate.”

As he said to his conference, “Pull the other one!”

Perhaps we should instead take a lesson from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who warned:

“We should remember that in 1981, President Reagan based most of his policies on the drawing of the Laffer curve done on a serviette…President Reagan used that as the basis for his policy of slashing taxes, and the United States Treasury went into huge deficit…The evidence to support the Laffer curve is weak.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 4 May 1999; c. 66.]

I agree, but those lessons are now being forgotten and we have the same old Tories dusting down the same old trickle-down economic theories. It did not work in the 1980s and it will not work today either. People will see it for what it is: out of touch and the same old Tories.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talks about the protection of privilege but this Government are increasing stamp duty on homes worth more than £2 million. Does she support that change or would she repeal it?

[Rachel Reeves]

I support cracking down on tax avoidance, but let us stick with the policy of cutting the 50p rate. The Office for Budget Responsibility shows that 300,000 people who are currently paying the 50p tax rate will get, on average, a tax cut next year of £10,000. For 14,000 millionaires, there will be an average tax cut next year of £40,000. That much we know. What we do not know is whether people putting their money in Monaco or a Caribbean bolt hole, as the Business Secretary described, will indeed rush back to the British Isles to pay the 45p rate of tax. If they do, perhaps some money will come in, but if they do not, we will lose out to the tune of £3 billion. The reality is that the stamp duty changes will affect only the people who are moving home, so the vast majority of millionaires who are happy in their mansions will not be affected by the changes. In fact, numbers published by the Treasury this morning show that tax avoidance measures will bring in around £300,000, but the changes to the top rate of tax will cost £3 billion. That is not fair; it is not the right priority to give millionaires a tax cut while asking millions of ordinary hard-pressed working families to pay more.

Once upon a time, some people argued that the Prime Minister needed a clause IV moment to fully detoxify the tainted Tory brand, but the Government have gone one step further; they have got themselves a clause 1 moment. Clause 1 of the Bill confirms once and for all that the Tory party will never be for the many, but always for the few. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the Government’s perverse priorities than the fact that when ordinary families are going through the toughest times in living memory, part 1, chapter 1, clause 1 of the Finance Bill gives a £3 billion tax cut to the richest 1% of the population, and the rest of the Bill is peppered with dubious means for making other far less fortunate people in our society pay for it.

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[Rachel Reeves]

If the hon. Gentleman extended that logic, there would be no tax relief for giving to charities. I am not sure if that is what the Government are proposing. People who give money to charities should be supported. We have heard a lot from the Prime Minister about the big society, but all those words about philanthropy and giving seem to have gone out of the window. It would be interesting to know whether the Chief Secretary thinks he has performed a U-turn this afternoon in the Chamber, as is being reported.

As the British Red Cross said, “Not only is such a measure at odds with the Government’s own announced agenda of increasing and facilitating philanthropy, it would reduce our ability to achieve our charitable objectives and reduce our help to people in a crisis.” Is that really what the Government intended when they announced these changes to tax relief in the Budget? Indeed, after the performance of the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury on the radio this morning, it seems that, along with “expansionary fiscal contraction” and “we’re all in this together”, the latest casualty from the Conservative lexicon is the big society.

[Christopher Pincher]

Earlier the hon. Lady was extolling the virtues of the United States. She will know that even the US, which is possibly the most philanthropic society in the world, has a cap in place on philanthropic donations, so is she opposed to the principle of what the Government are doing, or does she accept that there is a role for a cap?

[Rachel Reeves]

In the US there is much more generous tax relief for legacies, for example, so it is a very different tax system. In many ways it is more generous than the system in this country. What I would like to see is policy being made in the proper way, which is by consulting the people who will be affected by it—consulting the charities, which stand to lose tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of pounds and which do such good work. Like the Red Cross, they say that their ability to do their work will be hampered by the changes in tax relief. That consultation should have happened before, rather than after, the Government’s policies were announced and the financial changes to Treasury revenues were introduced.

Calling people who give to charities tax dodgers, as this Government imply, and referring to charities as dodgy, when those charities include Macmillan, Red Cross, UNICEF and Oxfam, is unhelpful. If the Government truly want to increase giving, the language should be tempered and people who try to do the right thing and support worthwhile causes should be encouraged, not insulted, for what they do.

Because the Government have been so keen to gloss over the real revenue-raising measures in the Bill, it is right that we take time this week to examine and evaluate them. This week Labour will give Members an opportunity to debate and vote on specific aspects of the Budget. We will give Members an opportunity to explore the effects of extending VAT, as has been mentioned by hon. Members this afternoon, and putting VAT up to 20% on the price of haircuts, hot snacks, and caravan holidays, although not on the price of ski lifts. VAT has been increased on the regular purchases of millions of ordinary families and is a heavy blow to many small businesses, manufacturers, retail employers and churches caught out by these changes.

Budget Leak Inquiry

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Let me repeat what I said earlier. It is a long-established practice of the Treasury not to comment on whether a leak inquiry has been established or on its conduct or outcome.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that Labour’s record of leaking is as long as its record in office. Not only did the last Govt leak like a sieve but Hugh Dalton, a previous Labour Chancellor, was forced to resign for leaking Budget secrets—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. I made the position clear. This is a set of exchanges about a specific and narrowly crafted urgent question. It may be about many things within that context, but it is not about 1947. We will leave it there.

Amendment of the Law

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is apposite that the shadow Chancellor used the word “con”. If he believes that the top rate of tax is about economics, not politics, why, in 13 long years, when they had the money, time and majorities, did the Labour Government not introduce that top rate of tax?

[Ed Balls]

We all agree that, after the global financial crisis, tough choices need to be made on tax spending and pay to get the deficit down, and we all agree that it needs to be done fairly. Two years ago, the Chancellor said that he had a plan—with tax rises and spending cuts, the economy would grow and unemployment would fall—but he has had to come back to the House and announce further tax rises because his plan is not working. But who is paying more tax? The pensioners. And who is getting a tax cut? The millionaires. That is the reality.

The Liberal Democrats call this a Robin Hood Budget, but they have got it the wrong way around. Robin Hood took from the rich to give to the poor, but the Budget takes from lower and middle-income families to give to the rich. Do they not see? The Chancellor is not Robin Hood; he is the Sheriff of Nottingham. As for jobs and growth, he could not give a Friar Tuck. As for Maid Marian—trapped in the castle, desperate to escape—we all feel sorry for the Business Secretary, and not just because, as a result of the pensions tax grab, he is probably the only member of this millionaire Cabinet who will be not better off but worse off as a result of the Budget—possibly with the Justice Secretary as well. I am not sure. But he cannot say he was not warned.

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[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I will certainly attempt to share the time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Although it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), I hope she does not mind me saying that the performance that I most enjoyed from her side of the House was that of the shadow Chancellor, whom Government Members think of with great affection. His performance reminded me of that of an ageing, end-of-the-pier show entertainer, rather like Archie Rice in the film “The Entertainer”, who was once a great character actor, but who, as he gets to the end of his career, has to reheat jokes to get more and more lame laughs. Members will remember that the last words of Archie Rice in “The Entertainer” were, “I’ve had enough.” That sums up our view of the shadow Chancellor.

I was at the Pickerings business breakfast in my constituency just a few days ago, where small and medium-sized enterprises, the engines of growth in my constituency, made three points to me: we need to deal with access to credit, we need to deal with the cost of business taxation, and we need to deal with the burden of bureaucracy that weighs them down. I will not go over the points that many hon. Members have made, but we have heard about the national loan guarantee scheme and Project Merlin, which is providing more money to businesses, allowing them to invest, create jobs and build growth. We have heard about the reduction in corporation tax from 26p to 24p, with a view to taking it to 22p and an aspiration to reduce it to 20p.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not, because I do not have much time.

The corporation tax reduction sends a message that this country and its businesses are open for business.

[Angela Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

No, the hon. Lady has had enough time to get herself into Hansard. I am not going to give way to her.

The reduction in corporation tax also sends a message to business that the Government are on its side and want it to create the jobs that pay the taxes that fund the public services we want and need. It is unfortunate that we have heard the shadow Chancellor today, and the shadow Chief Secretary bestriding the airwaves yesterday, saying that they would not have made the cut and would reintroduce corporation tax at 26p. What a message that sends to businesses in this country—that Labour has learned nothing and forgotten nothing from its mistakes. It does not want to kill the fatted calf; it wants to starve the entire herd.

I wish to give Ministers an important message about bureaucracy. Small and medium-sized enterprises have said to me that when they apply for a slice of the Government procurement pie, as the Government want them to do, they find the online application process time-consuming. For small businesses, time is a form of tax. I hope that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, who is in his place, will work with my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office continuously to streamline the process, with a view to reducing the time needed for initial online applications by just a few hours. That would help many small businesses apply for the slice of the Government procurement pie that we all know they need.

In the past, Chancellors have had a tin ear. Conservative Chancellors have made Budgets for accountants by accountants. The last Labour Government, after a reasonable start, began to write Budgets by spinners for spinners. It seems to me that Budgets should be made for the people. The Budget that we heard yesterday was an authentic Budget that spoke to the people. It spoke to the strivers, who want to get up, get on and make something of themselves. It spoke to the grafters, who are trying to build a business. It spoke to mums and dads who want their kids to grow up in a country that is free of crippling debt. It spoke to the aspirants, and I am happy to support it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

Like recoveries from all deep recessions, this one has been choppy, and we are facing subdued growth, as the Office for Budget Responsibility has laid out. There are many reasons for that, one of which is that the Labour party simply turned on the taps when it came to spending and left them running. What the right hon. Gentleman has to recognise is that in policies that deal with business we do not pick ones that have an extra £20 billion price tag that cannot be sourced. Perhaps it is his leader who needs to take a lesson in understanding business, as his adviser has said that he

“doesn’t understand business…there was always something missing.”

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend congratulate Jaguar Land Rover, BMW, B&Q and John Lewis, among others, on driving down long-term unemployment in Tamworth by a whacking 22%? Does not that demonstrate that it is through the private sector’s developing sustainable jobs that we will build sustainable economic growth?

[Miss Smith]

I certainly will join my hon. Friend in congratulating those firms. It is exactly through the private sector that we will find a more balanced recovery. I would also like to place on record my interest in the record numbers of apprenticeships in which such firms are participating, such as 440,000 more this year—up by half on the year before.