Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Nigel Mills

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Mills]

I think I am grateful for that intervention. It is not for me to answer for the Backbench Business Committee; my hon. Friend has more experience of that Committee, so perhaps he can explain later.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman tabled an amendment to the Immigration Bill, which was last debated on 19 November. Although the Bill has completed Committee stage, there is no date, even in today’s business statement, for when the Bill will be brought back to the House of Commons. Does he regret that his party’s business managers did not give him that opportunity?

[Nigel Mills]

That is the point that I was alluding to. It would have been better to have had this debate during consideration of the amendment to the Immigration Bill on Report, so that we could have dealt with the issue on the Floor of the House before the restrictions were lifted, which, sadly, is likely to happen in less than two weeks’ time. However, I am afraid that House business management is even further above my pay grade than the machinations of the Backbench Business Committee, so it is probably not wise for me to be drawn on that subject.

The right hon. Gentleman takes me to my first theme. The Minister and I—alone, sadly—have debated this topic before, at Committee stage. A month has passed, and a few things have changed. I was the lone signatory to the amendment at that point, but more than 74 MPs have now signed it for Report. A few of the facts have probably changed since then as well; obviously, there was already a petition with more than 150,000 signatories, but since that point, we have learned that despite the Government’s many welcome measures over the course of this Parliament, net migration rose in the last year, which causes concern to those of us who are committed to our manifesto promise to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands. Can that be achieved, especially if large numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians take advantage of the lack of restrictions? The Government have made a series of welcome announcements of policies to tackle immigration. Welfare measures were introduced to Parliament yesterday.

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[Mr Hanson]

That is perfectly correct. The new clause is trying to unpick treaties that are the responsibility of Government to negotiate. Primary legislation would not impact on that. Even the hon. Member for Amber Valley said in Committee a little later that

“trying to get this country to breach various treaties it has signed is probably not a very sensible way of pursuing our diplomatic mission, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.”––[Official Report, Immigration Public Bill Committee, 19 November 2013; c. 401-02.]

I say that simply because the issue is important, and we need to address it, but I am not clear that the new clause or having the debate before or after Christmas would change the fundamental position.

[Nigel Mills]

For clarification, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that I was saying that trying to do that in a Committee of a dozen or so MPs was not the right way forward. It was better for the whole House to consider it.

[Mr Hanson]

My contention still stands. Having said that, we have had a calm and rational debate, which is the best way in which to approach the issue—in a calm and measured way. I agree with the approach taken by the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), at least in the first half of his speech, on some of the benefits that wider immigration can bring to the United Kingdom.

In response to the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone)—I say this on the record for the House—my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friends the Members for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) have said clearly that mistakes were made in 2004 when transitional requests and controls were not put in place. It is a reasonable presumption to say that now. It is something that I am aware of, although at the time I was dealing with other matters in Government, and we have to accept that difficult, challenging and mistaken decisions were made at that time.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Nigel Mills

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) for kicking off this wide-ranging discussion on a number of important tax issues. He certainly enlightened me when he revealed that the Minister is tax personality of the year. I missed that; despite all my “Gauke” Google alerts, I missed the fact that he was tax personality of the year. May I offer the official Opposition’s wholehearted congratulations to him on that?

The hon. Member for Amber Valley gave a number of Ronald Reagan quotes and he said today was the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. That was on 6 February, in fact, but this is the 100th year since Ronald Reagan’s birth. As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, today is the day on which we shrank the UK tax base by giving away America 200-odd years ago, and I hope that, as part of his plans for simplification, the hon. Gentleman will recall that.

New clauses 12 and 14 were proposed by the hon. Gentleman and he may be surprised to learn that I am not averse to his suggestion in new clause 14, because there are grounds for discussing the simplification of UK corporation tax returns for multinationals. It is worth while considering the review that he suggests, provided that it examines whether such a simplification will decrease, rather than increase, tax evasion—an increase is always the worry with such a simplification. New clause 14 potentially has merit and although I do not expect the hon. Gentleman to push it to a vote, I hope that the Minister will consider the issue.

New clause 12 proposes to review, or possibly even remove, capital allowances and asks the Office of Tax Simplification to report on replacing them with a different form of relief. The hon. Member for Amber Valley will know that Labour Members had substantial concerns about reducing capital allowances for firms, which explains why I cannot support the new clause. My hon. Friends and I tabled a number of amendments in Committee to oppose the reduction in the capital allowances. I realise that the reduction was tied up strongly with the decision to cut corporation tax to 24% by 2014-15—shortly thereafter it was decided to cut it to 23%— which was one of the flagship growth measures in the June Budget. However, that was paid for by slashing investment and capital allowances, which encourage businesses to take a long-term view by providing tax relief on the purchase of equipment and machinery. The view that I expressed in Committee has not changed, although I know that it will cause disagreement: companies that invest, particularly in manufacturing—car industries in my own area of north Wales, advanced manufacturing, wind turbine manufacturing, plane makers and so on—will benefit from capital allowances, whereas the tax cuts are, unfortunately, aimed at financial services.

At the time of the June 2010 Budget, manufacturers expressed concern at what this approach will mean for industry. More recently, the engineering manufacturers association warned that the Government risk moving to a tax system that contains “a bias” against big manufacturers. Members on both sides of the House are trying to encourage manufacturing growth, and I believe that the review that the hon. Gentleman seeks in the new clause could be damaging to the growth of capital investment and, therefore, to the growth of manufacturing industry.

[Nigel Mills]

I wish to clarify something. My aim in new clause 12 was not to do what the right hon. Gentleman fears will happen, but to do the opposite. I was aiming to ask the OTS to consider simplifying or replacing the capital allowances regime with one that would match the tax relief more closely to the life of the assets being invested in. My concern was that an 18% reducing balance was giving tax relief over a far longer period than the actual useful life of those assets. I felt that having a simpler system, where a shorter “life” meant that the tax relief would be obtained much faster, would incentivise investment, not discourage it.

[Mr Hanson]

That is an interesting argument, and I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s detailed knowledge of these matters, which goes back to his professional experience before entering the House. My worry has been placed on the record on Second Reading, in Committee and on several other occasions. For the moment, it is best that we keep our arguments to the effectiveness of capital allowances, and I will, thus, still be unable to support the new clause.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) tabled amendments 15, 20 and 17. I suspect that he was even more surprised than me to hear the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) offer his unflinching support for my hon. Friend’s suggestions on this matter. I thank him for tabling his amendments because they make an extremely important contribution to the debate. We face a real issue in how we collectively address what is now a cross-party concern and shed light on the remuneration of executives, who are ultimately paid by the companies for which they work and by us as consumers of those goods in our society at large.

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[Nigel Mills]

My purpose in moving the new clause was to encourage the Government down the route of tax simplification, which I hope I have achieved tonight. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1

Charge and main rates for 2011-12

[Mr Hanson]

I beg to move amendment 10, page 1, line 9, at end insert—

‘(3) By 31 March 2012 the Office of Budget Responsibility, in consultation with HMRC, will report to Parliament on the revenue of the 50 per cent. rate of income tax and its impact on the UK economy.’.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Nigel Mills

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

The hon. Gentleman will know that there are many challenges across the board, and manufacturing is always going to be a changing, moving field. In my area of north Wales, for example, manufacturing grew quite dramatically. In my constituency, we make the Airbus aeroplanes, which you will know very well from your constituency in Bristol, Ms Primarolo. That has been a major growth industry, in partnership with Government investment, Government backing for investment and Government loans and grants to help to grow the private sector and create jobs. The people who have those jobs then spend their wages in the local economy, creating further jobs in shops and in other manufacturing areas across the board. It is therefore an ever-changing field.

I have tried to make it clear to the Minister that we support the general direction of travel on cutting corporation tax, because we do not want the UK to be uncompetitive with our neighbours. In our discussion on clause 4, I was simply seeking an assessment of how the Minister will measure the success of the provision, because we will be forgoing a considerable amount of resource and we will need to measure a success that we do not yet know. The proposal on capital allowances goes hand in hand with the proposal on corporation tax. We will be paying for that cut in part with a major slashing of investment allowances by £2.6 billion under these proposals. Again, I am simply asking for an ongoing assessment of the impact of the measure, because it might work and it might not. I fear that cutting the allowances will lead to a lack of investment, a lack of growth and a further reduction in the manufacturing industry that the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) is seeking to protect and develop. I want to test the Minister on these issues so that he can justify to the Committee why he is making these cuts.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting case. Would he care to comment on whether any work was done by the previous Government when the capital allowance rate was reduced from 25% to 20% to determine whether that cut had the kind of damaging consequences that he now envisages with the cut to 18%?