Stamp Duty Land Tax Bill

Debate between Lord Redwood and Anne Main

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

First, may I remind the Committee that, as listed in the register of Members’ interests, I provide advice to an industrial company and an investment company?

The Minister has produced what is on the whole an excellent scheme. I support most of it and was one of those, along with my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who was lobbying hard to get this major reform through. I congratulate the Minister and the Chancellor on dealing with the problems that the slab system created. The peaks and the dead areas were damaging to the property market and made it difficult for some people to buy or sell properties in certain price ranges. The system probably distorted pricing as well, to the benefit of some people and the detriment of others. It is therefore good that we have smoothed it out and introduced a more sensible progression up to £937,000, where most of the transactions lie. The new arrangements will represent a fairer, lower-cost system for practically all transactions, which is wholly admirable.

I want to tease out a little more information about the rather pessimistic forecasts of how much revenue will be lost up to the end of this decade. It is clear from the figures that cutting the higher rate of income tax has produced considerable extra revenue, as it was bound to do, given that the previous rate deterred people or meant that they did not come here at all. It is also clear from the figures that the much higher rate of capital gains tax has been very damaging to revenues, which are still miles below where they were prior to the crash. This is a difficult one to call, and I am not saying to the Minister that the proposals would either damage or increase revenues. I am merely suggesting that the Treasury’s forecasts for that lengthy time period could prove to be inaccurate, and that it would be nice to unpack those forecasts in order to understand what the Treasury thinks is going on.

The problem with trying to forecast the revenues at this juncture is that, on the one hand, we have seen a slowing of the mortgage market in recent months through regulatory intervention, and we would therefore expect fewer transactions because the regulators and the banks are now being much tougher about mortgages. On the other hand, however, we have Government intervention trying to mitigate that effect through the very successful and helpful Help to Buy scheme, which I believe to be necessary. It is certainly helping people in my area to buy their own home. However, the net result of these arrangements seems to be a dampening of transactions, and we must bear that in mind when trying to judge the impact of those policies and to assess the impact of the stamp duty change. All things being equal, we should expect to see an increase in the volume of transactions under the £937,000 level because buying such homes will be a bit cheaper, and in certain price bands we will see activity occurring that would not have occurred at all because of the slab effect.

[Mrs Main]

Does my right hon. Friend share the optimism that I feel, having talked to small businesses in my community, that there could be a knock-on effect from people having a bit more money to carry out home improvements? Those businesses have suffered in recent years because people have not been investing in their own homes.

[Mr Redwood]

Yes, indeed there could.

This is difficult to predict, because all these things need to be modelled. The level of the reduction in some cases is quite large, and it will be difficult to make up for all that lost revenue through increased transactions. That is why it would be interesting to probe the Treasury a little more on its forecasts. I expect it thinks that there will be quite a big revenue gain where the rate has gone up, but that effect might not prove to be as strong as it hopes, because there will definitely be a disincentive effect at the top end following the introduction of the very top rate for the privileged few who can afford those types of properties. Those people are often in the fortunate position of owning more than one property, and of being able to decide whether they wish to buy property in this country or elsewhere. There will be some kind of disincentive effect, and we need to look at relative taxes and relative prices in relation to London and other centres.

It would therefore help if we knew a little more about the Treasury’s numbers at this stage of the debate, so that when we review this policy in a year or two, we can see what was right and what was wrong. For example, does the Treasury think that there will be extra revenue from the higher rate? That has clearly not been the case in relation to the two big taxes that I have mentioned. Does it envisage a loss of revenue despite the effect on transactions at the lower level? It would be good to have more detail, so that we can have some benchmarks as we try to assess the financial impact of the policy.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Lord Redwood and Anne Main

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

I take my right hon. Friend’s advice on that, because she is more current on those arguments than I am.

I would like English MPs to be able to settle English issues on a fair basis. Labour gave us a cruel inheritance. The Prime Minister is wrestling with the bodged constitutional reforms on a huge scale that were made in the previous decade, which have left us with lop-sided devolution. Many in Scotland are hungry for more devolved powers and many in England feel that the settlement is very unfair. Labour also left us with three mighty federalising treaties with the European Union, which have left this Parliament struggling for power in many important areas of policy that matter to voters, as we saw on 22 May. This Parliament no longer has the power to make all or, in some cases, any of the important decisions in those areas.

[Mrs Main]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend shares my dismay at the missed opportunity to reduce the number of MPs and to have fairer constituency sizes, which was the result, sadly, of the lack of impetus behind the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011.

[Mr Redwood]

Indeed. The parties that voted against the boundary proposals have a lot to answer for. Again, that is unfair to England and to those constituencies that have many more voters than the average and that looked for some justice to be brought in through sensible reform. If this place is to work, we must surely work towards a world where we all represent roughly the same number of people. That is the kind of proportional representation that I believe in.

I hope that Scotland votes to stay in the Union. I think that that is likely because, had there been a tidal wave of opinion in favour of independence for Scotland—if that really was the wish of many people in Scotland—surely in the general election of 2010, the Scots would have voted in 30 or 40 Members of Parliament who were rooting for independence for Scotland. We would have taken that seriously and would have had to listen to them.

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Debate between Lord Redwood and Anne Main

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

As usual, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Why do we want to converge? I do not believe that the British public even know that we are converging, given that this is so lost in the mists of time.

[Mr Redwood]

I fear that the convergence programme began so that countries could converge with the Maastricht criteria to join the euro. As it is clear that we do not want to join the euro, we should in no way be talking about convergence.

[Mrs Main]

I shall not be supporting this motion, because I fundamentally disagree with what is on the front of the document—convergence. I do not think that our currency or our country should be converging with anything in Europe. Our sovereign Parliament should not have to hand in its notes to see whether or not they are acceptable to Europe. If there is convergence, I am sure that somebody is marking us out of 10 on how far down the road we have gone. If we have gone down that road, I would happily stop doing so right this minute. I conclude by saying that at some point this Parliament has got to stand up for itself and say, “We are not going to do this any more.” I would like this to be the year when we are not going to do this any more.

National Referendum on the European Union

Debate between Lord Redwood and Anne Main

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a delight to follow the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), who made an impassioned speech. I am pleased that we are both named signatories to the motion, as that shows that there is cross-party support for this debate. I was, however, disappointed to hear my Prime Minister say in his statement before the debate that tonight’s vote will show the will of Parliament, as it clearly will not do so. It will show the will of the Whips; it will show the will of enforcement. It will certainly not show the will of the people, who have voted for us to be elected to Parliament to speak on their behalf. I am therefore saddened, as I would like Parliament to express the will of the people tonight.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) gave a fine speech, in which he pointed out that some people will say anything to get elected. If Members have been going around their constituencies and the country saying, “I’d like to have a referendum,” when they have the chance to have one they should be principled. I congratulate my hon. Friend on having taken the principled stance of resigning from his post over this. As he said, he spent seven years telling his constituents, “Given a chance, I would give you the opportunity of a referendum.”

It was with a degree of sadness that I dug out the Liberal Democrat leaflet— printed, boldly, in orange. It calls for a real referendum on Europe, and many Members have referred to it. It was printed only a very few months ago, and just before a general election, and I am sure people were giving them out in their thousands. Many people ask what the defining difference is between us and the Liberal Democrats, and perhaps this leaflet helps to answer that. It carries the name of the current Deputy Prime Minister, and a photograph of his face is printed on it, and this is what it says:

“It’s been over THIRTY YEARS since the British people last had a vote on Britain’s membership of the European Union. That’s why the Liberal Democrats want a real referendum on Europe. Only a real referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU will let the people decide our country’s future. But Labour don’t want the people to have their say…The Conservatives only support a limited referendum, on the Lisbon Treaty. Why won’t they give the people a say in a real referendum? Not everything is perfect in Europe, but we”—

the Liberal Democrats—

“believe our membership has been good for the country. In Europe we can get real action to tackle climate change…That’s why the Liberal Democrats will campaign to stay in Europe in the referendum. But whether you agree with Europe or not, it is vital that you and the British people have a say in a real EU referendum.”

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) takes a principled position in arguing exactly the same point. He is in favour of the EU, and he could make that argument in a referendum campaign. Moreover, we are not debating nuances tonight.

[Mr Redwood]

As my hon. Friend noted, when the Liberal Democrats were in opposition they read opinion polls to choose popular policies, but now that they are in government they read opinion polls to choose the most unpopular policies possible. Some 80% of the public do not want a three-line Whip, so they impose one; 67% of the public want a referendum, so they are now against that.