Finance (No. 2) Bill

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

It is absolutely true. We have to face facts. We have to put direct support into housing supply. These rather opaque and indirect attempts to manipulate the public accounts with complicated and convoluted guarantees and underwriting arrangements do not communicate to the wider public who might be consumers of housing—looking to buy their first home or to rent differently. The Government must be far more direct about this approach.

It is clear that the Government’s ideological aversion to supporting the construction of affordable housing still inhibits recovery of the broader housing market. That is why housing starts fell 11% over the last year to 98,000 and why the number of private and local authority home starts was down, and the number of housing association home starts, at just over 19,000, was the lowest for eight years. There are 136,000 fewer home owners than when the Government came to power, and of course the youngest are hardest hit. Apparently, the average age of a first-time buyer is now 37.

We have doubts and questions about whether this Help to Buy scheme will work. Have the Government thought it through sufficiently? There are plenty of organisations focusing on housing policy. The first-time buyers pressure group PricedOut said that the Government should assist construction of more houses where there are chronic shortages. That is absolutely true. However, there is a point about whether help should no longer be targeted at lower and middle-income families, with the cap of £60,000, and used to support first-time buyers. We need from Ministers a thorough analysis of what is happening, particularly how many higher rate, or additional rate taxpayers will be taking advantage of the new scheme. What analysis have they made of that?

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

May I add a further inconsistency to those that my hon. Friend has mentioned? Under the current scheme, a single person could buy a three-bedroom house with a taxpayer subsidy for the mortgage, yet at the same time a social tenant who is single and wants a three-bedroom house is being penalised.

[Chris Leslie]

Never let it be said that this Government have any consistency whatsoever, but perhaps that is where we should turn to the Liberal Democrats—or the Liberal Democrat as I will henceforth call the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams).

There is another part of the Help to Buy scheme. We have talked about the equity loan aspect. The second part is the mortgage guarantee, supposedly designed to help individuals without a large deposit; they may have only 5% and are looking for a 95% mortgage from participating lenders. The Government say they will guarantee up to 15% of the mortgage in an attempt to encourage banks and building societies to offer loans to borrowers with small deposits.

Interestingly, the scheme is not starting in April; it will not start until January 2014. I hope Ministers can explain why they picked that date, because there is a potential risk of forestalling. We may have constituents who are wondering whether they should get on the housing ladder to help their family, or who are in the construction sector wanting to supply new homes. Is there not an incentive for many potential home purchasers to wait—to hold off and not enter the housing market until January next year? Paradoxically, further problems might emerge as a result of the scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

I live in hope that if not Ministers, the Minister’s officials will try to apply sticking plasters to bodge the thing together, but it is a real mess. Ministers need to go back to the drawing board and think more directly about the support that can be provided for affordable housing.

[Mr Hanson]

As I understand it, the scheme in question is administered by the Department for Communities and Local Government, so it might even be possible for a resident of, say, Chester to buy a second home in Wales under the scheme; for a resident of Berwick to buy a second home in Edinburgh; or for a resident of Liverpool to buy one in Belfast. Has that been thought through by the Government?

[Chris Leslie]

I doubt that very much. I know that will shock my hon. Friends, but I suspect the Government have not thought about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

In the interests of time, I must press on and answer some of the questions that were raised, including by the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) and others asked about the devolved authorities, in particular Scotland. The mortgage guarantee scheme is a UK-wide scheme and will be available to all UK residents, including of course those in Scotland and other devolved areas. The mortgage equity scheme is an England-only scheme as housing is a reserved issue among the devolved authorities.

[Mr Hanson]

For clarity, under that second scheme, could a resident of England purchase a property in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman asks a good question. Those are some of the details that we will flesh out. If he will allow me, I will look into the question further. I hope it is clear to him that the intention is that the mortgage guarantee scheme is a UK-wide scheme.

In the time that I have left, I shall turn to new clause 5. We have always been clear that the proposed mansion tax is an issue on which the two parties of the coalition have differing views. Our Liberal Democrat colleagues have supported the principle for some time, as we heard today so eloquently from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams). In contrast, Conservative Ministers have very real concerns about such a proposal.

We have concerns that a third of properties in London worth more than £2 million have been in the same ownership for 10 years, and that a mansion tax could hit asset-rich but potentially income-poor households. We have concerns that a family could live in a £2 million house, but have a very large mortgage. That would mean that their net wealth was a lot lower than the actual value of the home. We have concerns that any mansion tax would be administratively burdensome for HMRC to operate, not to mention intrusive for the person having their home inspected. But Opposition Members should be aware that we are taxing anyone purchasing a new home at this high value through the stamp duty land tax of 7% on residential properties costing £2 million or more. That is a policy that is easy to administer and it will not impact on existing home owners.

The Opposition have proposed that a mansion tax could pay for a tax cut for millions of people on low and middle incomes. The Government have already introduced tax cuts for those who need it most. We are increasing the personal allowance to £9,440 from April—the largest ever cash increase. That will be increased by a further £560 to reach £10,000 in 2014-15, meeting the Government’s commitment a whole year early. That is a tax cut for 24 million people and together takes 2.7 million people out of income taxation altogether.

Budget 2013 also announced that the fuel duty increase planned for September will be cancelled. The Finance Bill keeps fuel duty frozen at current levels, resulting in the longest freeze in fuel duty for 20 years, helping households and businesses with the cost of motoring.

Meanwhile, those with the highest incomes continue to contribute the most. This year the top 1% of taxpayers—those with an income of more than £150,000 a year—will pay approximately a quarter of all income tax. The top 5% of taxpayers—those on incomes of £68,000 or more—will pay nearly half of total income tax. As part of the Government’s commitment to create a fairer tax system, since 2010 the Government have raised taxes on the rich in every Budget. Budget 2010 introduced a higher rate of capital gains tax, Budget 2011 tackled avoidance through disguised remuneration, and Budget 2012 raised stamp duty land tax on high value homes and announced a cap on income tax reliefs. The autumn statement of 2012 took action to reduce the cost of pensions tax relief.

In Budget 2013 we announced further significant measures to tackle aggressive tax avoidance and offshore tax evasion by high earners. The richest now pay a higher percentage of income tax than they did under the previous Government. No doubt those on the Opposition Benches think a better approach would be to introduce a new starting rate of income tax, but let us not forget that the 10% rate is a policy that they introduced and then scrapped once before, to the cost of many further down the income scale—the people whom they claim they want to help. Fortunately, the Government have a more coherent income tax policy, as we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Bristol West. Our increases to the personal allowance have replaced the 10p rate, which Labour doubled; there have been successive increases to the tax free personal allowance. Effectively, we have introduced a 0% band.