International Women’s Day
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anneliese Dodds(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
It is such a pleasure to speak in this debate as we mark International Women’s Day. I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for proposing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for securing it.
Has it not been wonderful to hear so many examples of incredible women this afternoon in fields from science to business, health, education, the arts, politics, trade unions and more? Has it not also been important to celebrate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) rightly said, how wonderful it is to be a woman?
As we celebrate those examples, however, that celebration is tempered, as was mentioned earlier, by the realisation of the dreadful situation so many other women are in. The International Development Committee statement before this debate drew attention to the appalling circumstances of so many women and girls in Afghanistan, which was rightly underlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) in her remarks. Many speakers have also expressed sympathy for and solidarity with the women and girls of Ukraine.
As so many have said, it is hard for us here to imagine the horror and anguish those women and girls have faced over the past few weeks, whether they are still in Ukraine under Russian bombardment or have fled for safety, leaving brothers, fathers, partners and sons behind. Many have referred to what took place yesterday, with the Russian army bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol—almost too appalling to contemplate. For many of us, it is also horrendous to contemplate the circumstances for those women now having to give birth in bomb shelters in those areas under attack. Putin’s invasion is an attack on sovereignty, democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and women. Yesterday, Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, offered her testimony from Ukraine. In it she named some of the child casualties of the war such as Alice, Polina and Arseniy. In their name, we fully support—I am sure I speak for the whole House—providing the people of Ukraine with all possible political, economic and practical support to repel Putin’s forces.
This afternoon we have heard another awful list of names—that read out by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). Her testimony, delivered every year in this debate, highlights the shocking scale of the epidemic of violence against women in this country, without losing sight of the individual tragedy that lies behind every statistic. As she said, the perpetrators killed, but we in power can and must do better. My colleagues here and in the other place have time and again brought pressure to bear, not least during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. We argued for the inclusion of domestic abuse and sexual offences in the definition of “serious violence”; for violence against women and girls to be a strategic policing requirement, giving it the same prominence as terrorism and organised crime; for safeguards on the extraction of data from victims’ phones; for a lifting of the limit on the prosecution of common assault or battery in domestic abuse cases; and for a review, finally, into spiking so that we can get to the bottom of this appalling practice. None of those measures was included in the original Bill; they were all the result of campaigning with powerful women’s organisations beyond this House, and they were all achieved, I am sorry to say, in the teeth of Government opposition. Outside that specific legislation, it was also pressure from those organisation and from the Opposition that resulted in violence against women and girls becoming a strategic policing requirement, giving it the same prominence as terrorism and organised crime.
But there is so much more to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) said, we need drastic action that recognises that this is an emergency. Will the Government now introduce the other measures contained in Labour’s comprehensive Green Paper? Will they ensure that there will be a specialist rape unit in every police force area? Will they bring in minimum sentences for rape and for stalking? Will they make misogyny a hate crime, as has rightly been called for? Will they publish a perpetrators strategy, as the Domestic Abuse Bill requires this to happen before the end of next month?
Violence against women and girls—male violence, as was rightly said—is not just a criminal justice issue; it is also a public health one. More than 60% of women accessing mental health services have experienced domestic abuse—an appalling statistic at the heart of the Women’s Aid campaign, #DeserveToBeHeard, rightly promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum). That is one of many reasons why we have committed to guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it and enable 1 million more people to access treatment.
We had high hopes that the Government would be similarly ambitious when, this time last year, they announced that we would have a new women’s health strategy by the end of 2021. Well, it is now March 2022 and we are still waiting. In fact, we are waiting longer and longer—for cervical screening appointments, for breast cancer appointments, and for routine gynaecological treatment. We are seeing services cut, or in line to be cut, such as the access to telemedicine for early abortion that has rightly been referred to by so many Members today, and we are seeing areas of extreme need, such as PCOS—polycystic ovary syndrome—and endometriosis, still not being dealt with properly.
Life expectancy and outcomes for many women are actually worsening. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) has repeatedly emphasised, black women are now 40% more likely than white women to experience miscarriage and four times more likely to die while pregnant, yet we still lack any hard targets for improvement. Waiting lists were already at record highs even before covid-19 hit, but we can do something about it: previous Labour Governments reduced waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks. We have to learn from that change, act on it, and secure the future of our NHS, providing the staff, equipment and modern technology it needs to treat women on time.
As so many have said, we also need change for women in our economy, now more than ever. My party introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equality Act 2010, rightly referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) as a Labour achievement. Those advances were often delivered hand in hand with the trade union movement. We understand that our society, our economy and our country are poorer if women cannot play their part. Women hold the key to a stronger economy. Women-led small and medium-sized enterprises contribute about £85 billion to economic output, and companies in which women are more prominent are ultimately more successful, yet women are still less likely to be able to access as much finance as men when they try to set up companies, and only eight of the FTSE 100’s chief executive officers are women.
Backing women in business is not just the right thing to do, but makes hard-headed economic sense, yet we are still dragging our feet. We cannot do so any longer. That is why we have committed to 100,000 new businesses, many of them run by women, in the first term of a Labour Government. It is also why we would act to boost family-friendly employment rights. Last year, the gender pay gap actually increased—one of the few statistics that has not been mentioned in this debate—but that followed a decade of slower reductions than under the Labour Government, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy).
As my hon. Friends the Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) and for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) said, much of this precarity for women has been accelerated during the pandemic. We need gender pay comparisons across companies as well as ethnicity pay reporting in order to tackle compound inequalities. We need to tackle workplace harassment, including third-party harassment. We need to implement the International Labour Organisation’s convention against workplace harassment, and we need to ensure that flexibility is in the hands of women workers, not just their employers, as is currently so often the case. We must recognise childcare as the fundamental economic infrastructure that it is, not the afterthought it so often seems to be for too many women and families in our country. Finally, we need to measure the impact of policies on women, as the Government legally should do.
International Women’s Day is always a bittersweet moment—a chance to celebrate how far we have come, to note with regret how far we still have to go, and to recommit ourselves to the struggle for women and girls today and for our daughters and granddaughters tomorrow. My party now has as many women MPs as the proportion of women in the country, aiding us in this struggle, but there is still so much more to do—particularly in local government, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) said. It is also critical that we prevent the abuse of women on social media. The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) spoke powerfully about the impact of this abuse on women politicians, and I commend her on her honesty. To reflect on some of the discussion that took place previously, it always makes sense to check what a woman has actually said, rather than what a man suggests she has said on social media.
Women across our country deserve security, prosperity and respect. That is what a Labour Government will seek to ensure, and as long as we are on these Benches, it is what we will deliver as we seek to break the bias.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He said that he would endeavour to correct the record, and he has sought to do so. Would the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) like to follow that point of order?
Anneliese Dodds
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for giving me notice that he was going to make a point of order, but he actually stated that I was unable to define what a woman was. That is not true. I am a woman, obviously. Okay, we all occasionally might use the odd “um” or “ah” in an interview, but if he listened to what I said, I said “adult female, under the Equality Act.” Also in that interview, which he did not quote, I said that the Equality Act protects on the basis of sex, although some of his comments and those of others intimated that I did not. I stated that there is a biological definition and also a legal definition. If he wants to dispute whether any of those definitions are extant, I am happy to have that discussion. I do not think that his argument would hold water, because it would not be a correct one. I feel that he should still withdraw those original remarks, but I accept that, at least from his point of view, he has attempted to set out his view. I do, however, think it is a mistaken one.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for answering that point of order. There is clearly a difference of opinion, and that is not a matter on which the Chair can adjudicate, and nor should the Chair try to. The facts have been satisfactorily put on the record, and I am grateful to everyone concerned for doing so.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this house has considered International Women’s Day.
Points of Order
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anneliese Dodds
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) intervened on me to “set the record straight” on whether one of his constituents secured a contract from the Government related to the covid-19 pandemic. He said that claims of such a contract were
“a fabrication pushed by the Labour party—it is a load of rubbish.”—[Official Report, 30 November 2021; Vol. 704, c. 851.]
Yet today the Good Law Project published evidence indicating that a company called Alpha Laboratories won a contract worth more than £40 million from the Department of Health and Social Care in December 2020, and that this company appears to have subcontracted all the manufacturing of goods to another company, Hinpack Ltd, which appears to be run by his constituent.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek your guidance on whether the right hon. Gentleman should return to the House to set the record straight by withdrawing the comments he made yesterday.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order, and she will recall that I was in the Chair during her exchange with the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock). I must ascertain that she has mentioned to him that she intended to raise this matter today.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Thank you for that confirmation. The hon. Lady knows that what is said by one Member to another is not a matter for the Chair. If the facts that have been presented to the Chamber turn out to be wrong, it is incumbent on not only every Minister but every Member to come back to the Chamber at the earliest opportunity to set the record straight. I make no judgment about the facts, because that is not a matter for me. The facts are a matter for debate.
I understand why the hon. Lady wanted to raise the matter. She has done so, and she will know there are various ways in which she can hold Ministers to account for the veracity or otherwise of the facts she is disputing.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anneliese Dodds(3 years ago)
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Anneliese Dodds
No, I will not give way. [Hon. Members: “Withdraw!”] And I most certainly—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. We have had a perfectly reasonable exchange between the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) and the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). We do not need shouting about it. We are dealing here in facts and good argument, not shouting.
Madam Deputy Speaker
No. I appreciate what the hon. Lady is saying, but it is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. Perhaps she might like to address it later in the debate.
Anneliese Dodds
It is indeed the case that facts have been laid out in courts of law; they stand for themselves.
I have to say that at a time when our national health service and our care workers and volunteers up and down the country are yet again supporting the covid effort, I think that it is incredibly important that this Government be transparent. [Hon. Members: “Withdraw!”] I will not withdraw what I have said, but I hope that the Conservative Government will withdraw what they have said about not being transparent—a point that I will come to in a moment.
The foreword written by the Prime Minister says that there will be
“no actual or perceived conflicts of interest”.
Sadly, we know that there have been so many. Peerages have apparently been handed out to anyone who can meet the £3 million entrance charge and agree to a stint as Conservative party treasurer. David Cameron and Lex Greensill were given the run of Whitehall to beg for access to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. More than half a billion pounds in testing contracts was handed over to a company advised by a Conservative former Minister, without competition and behind closed doors, with a second contract dished out to Randox Laboratories after it had failed to deliver on the first.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) for the comments that he has just made. If he believes in transparency—
Points of Order
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anneliese Dodds(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker
I will accept that. The Minister re-writing history is a matter—[Interruption.] No, I do not need any advice from the Treasury Bench right now, thank you. The hon. Lady is alleging that the Minister is re-writing history. She may make that allegation. I was not happy with her saying that an untruth had been told and I am grateful to her for changing the way in which she has made her point. I am very grateful to her. We must keep moderation here in the Chamber.
I say again to the hon. Lady that what she clearly wishes to do, and it would seem on perfectly reasonable grounds, is reopen the debate. There are various ways in which she can do that. The Clerks and the Speaker’s Office will help her to do so, because it is important that Ministers are held to account, and that if the hon. Lady believes the facts laid before the House by a Minister are not correct, they be corrected at the earliest possible opportunity. The Minister’s colleagues will have heard what I have said and what the hon. Lady has said, and I hope that that will be acted upon. If the hon. Lady needs further advice on how to bring this matter forward, I am more than happy to help her in private.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope my point of order will be moderate and speedy. I believe it relates to a critical issue for the House. A week ago, this House agreed:
“That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty”—
to lay before the House—
“the minutes from or any notes of the meeting of 9 April 2020 between Lord Bethell, Owen Paterson and Randox representatives, and all correspondence, including submissions and electronic communications… relating to the Government contracts for services provided by medical laboratories, awarded to Randox Laboratories Ltd.” —[Official Report, 17 November 2021; Vol. 703, c. 586.]
During the debate prior to that motion being agreed, the Minister present was unable to provide a definition of what was within scope in relation to the solemn commitment made by the House to Her Majesty, and she was unable to reassure the House with a concrete timetable to make good on that commitment.
Madam Deputy Speaker, is it in order for the Government to agree to present an Humble Address to Her Majesty yet not be forthcoming with the vital information required to fulfil that commitment? If not, what action can Opposition Members take to ensure the Government keep their promises to the Crown?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. She is absolutely right to raise this matter. I recollect that the House agreed to the terms of the Humble Address. Mr Speaker would expect the Government to fulfil their obligations under that Humble Address agreed to by the House. I am sure that those on the Government Benches have heard—
Finance Bill
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anneliese DoddsMonday 27th April 2020
(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I echo the Financial Secretary’s comments about the hard work that you and the parliamentary authorities have gone to, to ensure that these proceedings could go ahead? Of course, as the Opposition we are well aware of the need for Government to have a legal basis to continue levying taxes, and we approach this Bill very much in that spirit.
Many of the clauses in this Finance Bill were written many months ago, with a large number of them involving relatively minor fixes to existing tax legislation—not exactly the vegetable waste and pig swill that the Financial Secretary referred to in his colourful and wide-ranging perorations, but none the less in large part delivering technical aspects of already announced policies. In fact, overall, this Bill presents a picture of continuing the business as usual of the last 10 years.
However, it is unthinkable that we will go many months before additional fiscal measures will need to be brought in by this Government. There will be an urgent need to stimulate the economy as and when we move out of the lockdown, and when boosting consumption will not threaten to damage disease containment. Other measures may well be needed to help alleviate some of the numerous supply-side problems caused by the current dislocation.
Finally, of course, we will need to deal with the considerable burden created by the costs necessarily incurred in fighting coronavirus. Subsequent Finance Bills will need to be very different from this one, and I want to use the time I have available to spell out why. We will need new approaches to taxation generally, the social contract with business, funding public services, the climate crisis and tax reliefs. I will deal with each area briefly in turn.
First, we of course need a different and fairer approach to tax. The Bill largely continues the previous framework, with its reductions in the tax paid by the very best-off people, while support for the worst-off has been reduced. The Financial Secretary will, I am sure, be aware of the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis of the distributional consequences of successive Budgets since 2010. As of 2019, for example, due to changes in tax and social security, the poorest 10% of households have seen losses of 11% of their income, on average, as a direct result of reforms. Among those with children, the losses amount to 20%: that is £1 out of every £5 being removed from low-income families with kids. Large numbers of frontline careworkers fall into that category. We know from recent research by the Resolution Foundation that half of careworkers are not paid the real living wage, and tens of thousands appear to be paid even below the national minimum wage. They deserve better. In contrast, the best off 10% of people have seen losses of only 2% in their incomes due to tax and social security changes since 2010.
As all in this House will remember, George Osborne maintained that, in his recovery, 80% of the reduction in debt should come from cuts to spending and only 20% from tax changes, yet the latter went alongside cuts in income tax, inheritance tax and capital gains tax for the very best-off people.
There is already a lively debate about how we should deal with the costs incurred by the coronavirus. The academic consensus is that decisions taken to load the cost of debt on to spending cuts in the 2010s made our recovery slower than it would have been otherwise, so it was the slowest not only in a generation but in eight generations, and slower than in many other countries. I am not saying that to castigate the Government; I am saying it because we will need to adopt a radically different approach to future Finance Bills from that seen over the last 10 years.
We are currently feeling the impact of that decade’s fiscal approach very keenly, especially when it comes to UK households’ resilience. A quarter of UK families entered this crisis with less than £100 in savings—making it impossible for them, for example, to buy a new cooker or get their car fixed—and almost 2 million households did not even have a cooker in their home in the first place. As and when we return to what will be a very different normality, we must have building up financial resilience at the core of future Finance Bills. That will mean instituting a more progressive tax system, with those with the broadest shoulders contributing to services that benefit us all.
Secondly, we will need a new social contract with business. As discussed at length during the statement, huge numbers of businesses are currently struggling like never before. We have already discussed the Government’s economic package today, and I must emphasise again that there is a very strong expectation from the public that public support must translate into protecting jobs, not the extraction of value into already deep private pockets.
We have called for the Government to consider the examples of other nations, such as France and Denmark, as well as that of the Labour Government in Wales, when approaching the bail-out of different large firms. Jobs must be retained, workforces must be supported, and we should expect and require good corporate behaviour going forward. That means a ban on public funds being passed into tax havens or doled out immediately in dividends, no share buy-backs on bailed out companies, and a commitment to improvements in environmental performance in future.
We also need a renewed focus on dealing with the enablers of tax avoidance and evasion. I regret that we still do not see that when it comes to those who facilitated disguised remuneration loan arrangements, while those who received such arrangements continue to be affected by the loan charge.
The Bill rightly rows back on the Government’s previous ill-advised commitment to cut corporation tax further to 17%, by maintaining it at 19%. The OBR estimated that a cut to the latter rate would reduce receipts by £5.4 billion a year in three years. Recent reductions in corporation tax have not boosted investment in the UK. It was clear that such a reduction simply could not be afforded in current circumstances, and we therefore welcome that element of the Bill. When we talk to businesses, as I am sure Government Members do regularly, rates of corporation tax are not the headline reason for locating in the UK. Other factors are far more important, such as workforce development and training, logistical factors such as transport, and—critically—business rates, which are a key issue for many companies in our nation.
There is, of course, an imbalance in the taxation of those businesses based in fiscal property compared with internet-based businesses—the division between bricks and clicks. The Bill details the digital services tax—a new 2% tax on the revenues of search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces that derive value from UK users. We welcome that tax to the extent that it recognises the comparative under-taxation of many digitally provided services, but we are concerned about the restricted scope of the measure. It means, for example, that Amazon will continue to pay a lower rate of tax in relation to revenue than many high street bookstores and other retailers. In addition, it fails to fill the gulf in unpaid corporation tax from many of the largest technology firms. TaxWatch UK has suggested that the UK is losing £1.3 billion in corporation tax from just five of those firms, and the digital services tax would make up less than half of that.
The current crisis suggests that digitally based businesses will amount to an even larger part of our economy in the years to come, so we need to get this right. Above all, our Government need to be more explicit about their discussions with international partners about the move to a formula-based corporation tax system. Given the ability of those firms to shift profits between countries, we must work with other countries to apportion taxing rights better.
The OECD’s anti-base erosion and profit shifting project was a good start, but it failed sufficiently to inform countries in the global south. I hope Ministers will be more forthcoming in future about what they are doing to seek that international consensus, not least given current hostility from the US towards multilateral approaches in a number of areas. This topic is controversial, and we need to hear more than just that our nation is engaged in those discussions.
I hope Ministers will be more forthcoming in their approach when it comes to local government finance, which is crucial in providing public services—from social care, to helping the homeless, to providing areas for leisure and play. Local authorities will be crucial in helping to rebuild the economy after this period, through their work on economic development.
My third point concerns the need for the Government to commit to a proper, deep and wide review of local government finance that takes account of the full impact of the crisis in terms of extra expenditure and forgone income, and which considers business rates and council tax in the round. We still only have a commitment to yet another restricted review of business rates. Surely we can be more ambitious in that area, as the need for a deeper review is now very strong. The goal must be to provide certainty and stability about the provision of local public services.
An additional area where action is needed is tackling the climate crisis. Survey evidence, albeit tentative at this stage, suggests a renewed appetite from the public to grasp the challenges posed by the need to decarbonise. The Bill makes small moves in the right direction. It incrementally increases vehicle excise duty, using emissions as a benchmark—the Chief Secretary to the Treasury mentioned that—and it introduces the world- wide harmonised light-duty vehicles test procedure, a UN-established vehicle testing procedure, in an attempt to prevent the gaming of emissions standards by vehicle manufacturers. We encourage the Government to adopt a steady replacement of all testing procedures within that framework. More broadly, we need a far stronger shift in taxation to disincentivise carbon production. The previous Finance Bill continued implicitly to support fossil fuels in a number of areas, and this one only sets the scene for some elements of the promised new plastics tax and the new emissions controls that will be necessary. Given that we have declared a national climate emergency in this very House, we need far stronger action in subsequent Finance Bills.
Finally, we fail to see in the Bill any substantive change in the Government’s approach to tax reliefs. This is essential. Public funding will be under pressure, so we must choose very carefully what we subsidise through these reliefs.
The incidence of tax reliefs has increased over recent years, yet there is little thorough oversight of their impact. Labour has called repeatedly for a thorough review of tax reliefs, but this Bill does not deliver one. As public finances come under substantial pressure, that position is no longer sustainable.
The National Audit Office’s recent report on tax expenditure showed that the Government are not reporting costs of over two thirds of reliefs; that must change. Alterations are made in this legislation to entrepreneurs relief—that was right to state—but the Institute for Fiscal Studies has suggested that the £1 million limit is still too generous. Furthermore, it does not achieve its principal aim of boosting investment, with the IFS stating:
“If one of the aims of reduced capital gains tax rates on business assets is to incentivise individuals to invest more in their businesses, this evidence suggests they are not working.”
We must ensure that corporate tax reliefs are focused on employment retention and promotion, and the provision of public goods. That is as essential for entrepreneurs relief as for the hundreds of others that continue to receive little public scrutiny.
There are many measures in the Bill that are sensible, that tidy up anomalies and that make life easier for taxpayers and HMRC, and we welcome them. But, as I have said, in many ways this feels like a Finance Bill for a different age. Subsequent Budgets and Bills will need to recognise the need for a much more resilient household financial situation and much more resilient public services, and will need to move away from the demand-sapping, confidence-stripping approach that has characterised the response to the last crisis. We stand ready to work with the Government where we can to achieve that new approach.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
We now have to introduce a formal time limit of five minutes. Members in the Chamber will be able to observe the clock, but I strongly advise Members who are participating virtually to have a timing device nearby that they can see, because, due to necessity, the five-minute time limit will be very thoroughly enforced.
Securitisation Regulations 2018
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anneliese Dodds(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. A short while ago, this was a very well behaved debate on very specific issues, but since the speech of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), it seems to have become a very general and exciting debate. I know that Members are anticipating a Division, and they will be trying very hard to make up their minds on which side of the House they are going to vote, but they must listen to the hon. Lady.
Anneliese Dodds
I will not strain the House’s patience, but I fear that the Minister, who is normally very clear in his remarks, is mixing apples and pears. He mentioned credit rating in relation to sub-prime mortgage-related securities in the United States. There was a relationship with the US state in that case, because of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but there was not a connection between that process and the British state. I fear that there was a little bit of confusion there.
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anneliese DoddsWednesday 21st February 2018
(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 8—Annual report on relief for first-time buyers—
“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must prepare and lay before the House of Commons a report for each relevant period on the operation of the relief for first-time buyers introduced in Schedule 6ZA to FA 2003 not less than three months after the end of the relevant period.
(2) The report shall include, in particular, information in respect of the relevant period on—
(a) the number of first-time buyers benefiting from the relief,
(b) the number of purchases benefiting from the relief,
(c) the average age of first-time buyers benefiting from the relief,
(d) the effects on the operation of the private rented sector,
(e) the effects on council housing and other social housing,
(f) the effects on the supply of affordable housing, and
(g) the effects on the operation of collective investment schemes under Part 17 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
(3) For the purposes of this section, ‘relevant period’ means—
(a) the period from 22 November 2017 to 5 April 2018,
(b) each period of 12 months beginning on 6 April during which the relief is in effect, and
(c) the period beginning on 6 April and ending with the day on which the relief ceases to have effect.”
This new clause requires an annual report on the operation of the relief for first-time buyers, including information on the beneficiaries and effects on different aspects of housing supply.
New clause 2—Review of income tax revenue—
“(1) The Office for Budget Responsibility must review the revenue raised by the rates of income tax within six months of the passing of this Act.
(2) A review under this section must consider revenue raised by the rates of income tax specified in sections 3 and 4.
(3) A review under this section must also consider the effect on revenue of raising each of the rates of income tax specified in sections 3 and 4 by one percentage point.
(4) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must lay before the House of Commons the report of the review under this section as soon as practicable after its completion.”
This new clause provides for a review of the revenue raised at the rates of income tax specified by Clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill and the effect on revenue of raising each of those rates by one percentage point.
New clause 10—Review of retrospective VAT refunds for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Police Authority—
“(1) Within one month of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Chancellor of the Exchequer shall commission a review of the potential consequences of allowing the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Police Authority to claim VAT refunds under section 33 of VATA 1994 retrospective to the date of their establishment.
(2) The review shall consider—
(a) the administrative consequences of allowing retrospective claims, and
(b) the impact on revenue of allowing retrospective claims.
(3) The Chancellor of the Exchequer shall lay the report of this review before the House of Commons within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.”
This new clause would require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to commission a review into what the potential consequences of allowing the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Police Authority to make retrospective claims for VAT refunds would be.
New clause 11—Analysis of effect of income tax rates on incentives into employment—
“(1) The Office for Budget Responsibility must review the impact of the rates of income tax specified in sections 3 and 4 in accordance with this section within six months of the passing of this Act.
(2) A review under this section must consider the impact of the rates of income tax specified in sections 3 and 4 on the incentives for individuals to seek employment, including—
(a) whether those rates create, or detract from, an incentive for those not employed to enter into employment,
(b) whether those rates create, or detract from, an incentive for those currently in employment entering into new employment at a different level of income, and
(c) to what degree those rates create, or detract from, any such incentive.
(3) A review under this section must also consider those rates in the context of—
(a) National Insurance contributions,
(b) tax credits, and
(c) social security benefits.
(4) A review under this section must give separate analyses in relation to the impact of the rates of income tax specified in sections 3 and 4 in different parts of the United Kingdom.
(5) In this section—
‘parts of the United Kingdom’ means—
(a) England,
(b) Scotland,
(c) Wales, and
(d) Northern Ireland.
(6) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must lay before the House of Commons the report of the review under this section as soon as practicable after its completion.”
Government amendments 6 to 8.
Amendment 10, in clause 44, page 38, line 30, at end insert—
“(4A) In paragraph 1GE (higher rates of duty) after paragraph (3)(c) insert—
‘(d) the vehicle is not a taxi.
(3A) For the purposes of this paragraph, ‘taxi’ has the same meaning as in section 64 of the Transport Act 1980.’”
Amendment 11, page 39, line 1, after “section”, insert
“(other than those made by subsection (4A)”.
Amendment 12, page 39, line 2, at end insert—
“(8) The amendments made by subsection (4A) have effect in relation to licences taken out on or after the day on which this Act is passed.”
Amendment 13, in schedule 3, page 65, line 32, leave out from “and” to “or” in line 36 and insert
“each of the conditions in subsection (1A) is met”.
This amendment, together with Amendment 14, provides that a pension scheme cannot be de-registered on grounds of the dormancy of a single company within the scheme, but only if conditions are met in relation to the date of first registration and the trading status of participating companies.
Amendment 14, page 65, line 37, at end insert—
“(4A) In section 158 (grounds for de-registration), after subsection (1), insert—
(1A) The conditions in this subsection are that—
(a) the scheme was registered in the current tax year or in the six preceding tax years,
(b) no sponsoring employer in relation to the scheme is a body corporate that is actively trading at the time that withdrawal is being considered, and
(c) no sponsoring employer in relation to the scheme is a body corporate that was actively trading for a period of at least twenty four months.”
See explanatory statement for Amendment 13.
Government amendment 9.
Anneliese Dodds
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will speak briefly to the SNP’s new clause 10 and to amendment 12, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), both of which the Opposition support. I will then speak in more detail about our new clauses 7 and 8.
On new clause 10, Labour Members welcome the Government’s decision to allow the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Police Authority to claim retrospective VAT refunds. The measures in the new clause follow the Scottish Government’s decision in 2012 to establish a nationwide fire and rescue service for Scotland. The then Treasury Minister, who is now the Justice Secretary, wrote:
“Based on the information currently available it seems that, following the Scottish government’s planned reforms, neither the new police authority nor the fire and rescue service will be eligible for VAT refunds under Section 33 of the VAT Act 1994.”
As colleagues will know, that Government decision meant that the Scottish police and fire services lost out on VAT refunds worth more than £30 million, with the Scottish police losing out on about £26 million. To some extent, I would argue it was a sign of recklessness that, at a time of austerity, the Government effectively left Scottish firefighters and police officers to fend for themselves. While Labour Members welcome the Government’s change of heart, we recognise the need for a proper process covering retrospective claims for VAT refunds.
The review proposed by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) would ensure that the process for VAT refunds was transparent, and that the VAT claims of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Police Authority were properly refunded by the Government. The review would also ensure that such an ill-informed decision, backed up by insubstantial reasoning, would not be allowed to happen again. That is why we support the new clause.
Amendment 12 focuses on an issue that I raised in Committee: the fact that taxi drivers with a zero-emission capable vehicle will not be exempt from vehicle excise duty until next year. As we discussed in Committee—I am sure that the Minister remembers this—taxi drivers need to purchase their car over a long period due to its relatively high cost. In many areas of the country, taxi drivers are shifting to lower or zero-emission capable taxis. I asked the Minister whether further changes were needed to the Bill so that the take-up of zero-emission capable taxis would not be choked off. I was grateful to the Minister for stating that there would be a consultation on the new measures in the spring, but I do not know whether that consultation has yet begun, so perhaps the Minister will enlighten us on that point. In the meantime, it seems sensible, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North proposes, to prevent taxi drivers from taking a hit when they have taken an environmentally friendly choice, which has considerable financial consequences for them because the vehicles are more expensive than standard taxis.
I now come on to Labour’s new clauses 7 and 8, which would require a review of the proposed relief on stamp duty for first-time buyers, followed by an annual report on the policy’s effectiveness. The review and the report would consider the impact of the new measure on house prices and housing supply, and cover who benefits from the policy. The need for such reviews is very clear. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment of the measure is set out in black and white: it is likely to increase prices by 0.3% and benefit a very small number of people. In its words, the main gainers from the new stamp duty policy are people who already own property, not first-time buyers. It added that some potential first-time buyers with smaller deposits might now be able to borrow a little more, therefore allowing them to buy properties that they otherwise could not afford, but that the process would be more expensive. That is in the context in which the average price of a home in England for first-time buyers has gone up by almost £40,000 since 2010. In fact, only about 3,500 additional homes are predicted to be sold as a result of the new incentive.
Anneliese Dodds
No, I will not give way, because I think I have answered the point. As I say, it is very clear; the figures speak for themselves, very obviously, on this point. The point is particularly and disturbingly clear in relation to home ownership among under-45 households—so for younger people—where the number of homeowners has fallen by 1 million since 2010.
We had a debate earlier about home ownership, and the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) stated, “It’s not just about home ownership. We need to think about other areas as well”. That is absolutely right. We have 1.3 million additional private renters in this country. Many on the Opposition Benches would not necessarily see that as a terrific thing; we would see it as lots of people stuck in private rented accommodation who do not want to be there, and we do not see measures in the Budget or Bill to deal with that problem.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Ah, I was about to draw to the hon. Lady’s attention the fact that we only have an hour for this debate, but she has already counted that.
Anneliese Dodds
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do beg your pardon.
Let me end by quoting, very briefly, what I think was a devastating assessment of this policy by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), because not every Member who is present now was present then. She said:
“what is really unpopular in our country is having to step over rough sleepers while walking home. What is really unpopular in our country is having to watch other parents taking paper into schools because our schools cannot even afford the basic necessities. And what is deeply unpopular in our country is watching the number of food banks grow because jobs do not pay enough.
People will remember that while all that was going on, the Tories were busy cutting stamp duty for people who could afford to buy houses. I do not think they will ever forget that.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2017; Vol. 633, c. 867.]