BBC Funding

Debate between John McDonnell and Lucy Frazer

Thursday 7th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The BBC is, of course, operationally independent and it is not for the Government to say what it should provide. However, I remind my hon. Friend and the House that the BBC is there to provide a public service and it has a public purpose: to reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the UK. The BBC must also support the creative economy across the UK. Of course regional and local news and other output is an important part of that.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

May I ask the Secretary of State to get real? I am secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, and it has other members here. She knows that as sure as night follows day there will be the loss of journalistic jobs as a result of this cut, at a key time, when we are going into a general election and they are desperately needed. Why does she not admit that this is a revenge attack for all those times at 10-past 8 on the BBC’s “Today” programme when Ministers, having been asked questions by Nick Robinson, Mishal Husain, Justin Webb, Amol Rajan or Martha Kearney, have floundered to answer a basic, straight question? The review is an overlying threat to the BBC about its behaviour in holding this Government to account.

[Lucy Frazer]

I do not accept anything that the right hon. Gentleman has just said. The purpose of the review is to ensure that the BBC can continue to provide its exceptional and outstanding service for decades to come. If we just sit on our hands and do nothing, it will be overtaken by other media outlets that are competing in the world. We need to ensure that the BBC has a sustainable financial platform from which to provide its outstanding service.

National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill

Debate between John McDonnell and Lucy Frazer

Committee stage
Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I wish first to address amendment 1, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and would bring forward to 6 April the increase to the primary threshold that is introduced in clause 1. Of course the Government want to help people with the cost of living as quickly as possible, which is why the Chancellor introduced a number of measures immediately, including the cutting of fuel duty, which came into force at 6 pm last night. However, it was not possible to deliver the increase to the primary threshold from 6 April, which is in less than two weeks’ time.

The Government are implementing the change as early as possible, from 6 July. It is not possible for the majority of software and payroll providers to deliver the measure for April. Its delivery to an April timeline would see millions of individuals paying the incorrect amount of NICs at the start of the tax year, in just two weeks’ time. There would then be an additional administrative burden on employers, who would have to manually re-run the payroll once the software was ready. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) said, the earliest that we can deliver the policy and it can be implemented by all software developers is July. That will avoid millions of taxpayers having to make manual claims for refunds.

Overall, the delivery timetable strikes the important balance between ensuring that individuals see the benefits of the increase as early as possible and allowing employers and payroll-software providers sufficient time to update and test their systems so that the change is delivered smoothly and individuals can enjoy the benefits at the same time. I hope the hon. Member for Bath will withdraw her amendment for the reasons I have outlined.

Let me turn to the new clauses in combination, because they address similar matters. On the points that Members made about poverty, if we look back at the past 10 years, we see that around 1.3 million fewer people are living in poverty, half a million fewer children are growing up in workless households and hundreds of thousands fewer children are living in poverty.

[John McDonnell]

I do not want the Minister to miss the point of new clause 1. I understand why she is setting out the statistics as she understands them, but they are contested. Nevertheless, the point I was trying to make with my new clause is that the Government should always publish a full report on their assessment of the implications of their legislation for both low pay and poverty, and that that report should include their assessment of the other options available to them that they could have taken. It is a simple measure that I hope would apply to all Governments of whatever political colour.

[Lucy Frazer]

I was going to come to the distributional analysis of the spring statement. The analysis in the document “Impact on households: distributional analysis to accompany Spring Statement 2022” shows that

“government policy continues to be highly redistributive; in 2024-25, on average, households in the lowest income decile will receive over £4 in public spending for every £1 they pay in tax”.

It also shows that

“in 2024-25, the poorest 60% of households will receive more in public spending than they contribute in tax”

and that

“on average, the combined impact of personal tax and welfare decisions made since SR19 is progressive, placing the largest burden on higher-income households as a proportion of income.”

[John McDonnell]

I do not want to labour the point. I have read the analysis of the impact on households; it is always very helpful, but it does not address the issue of low pay and poverty, or other policy options that could be considered. I make the point for the future. I know it is impossible to address now, but I think such a report should be published automatically. If the Government do not publish it, maybe a report should be published by the OBR or some other body that we establish to enable that to happen.

[Lucy Frazer]

I recognise the point made by the right hon. Member and I will of course consider it for the future. Considering a variety of hypothetical scenarios is time-consuming, which is why that is not traditionally done, but I will take his point away and consider it further.

I reiterate some of the points we discussed on Second Reading only a moment ago about the impact of the measures on those in lower pay and on universal credit. As hon. Members know, there was an autumn Budget not very long ago, followed now by this spring statement. In the autumn Budget, the Chancellor started the journey of helping to support those on lower pay through the tax system. He announced the first tax cut on his journey to cut taxation—the cutting of the taper rate, which will put £1,000 into the pockets of those on universal credit.

Hon. Members will already know about the increase in the national living wage. They will have seen the £1 billion household support fund, which is helping people in all our constituencies, building on other measures that were announced at the autumn Budget. More recently, we have provided £9 billion in energy support. There is the increasing generosity of the local housing allowance for housing benefit and the holiday activities and food programme. The Chancellor’s plan for jobs—the Conservative plan—whether through the kickstart scheme, the restart scheme, work coaches or boot camps, is to ensure that, where people can get into work, they get into work, and they are upskilled so that they earn more for themselves.

On new clause 4, the increase to the primary threshold and the lower profits limit is a tax cut on earned income that will benefit almost 30 million working people.