European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Redwood and Owen Smith

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I am pleased with that, and I hope that we will vote on it tomorrow.

I am insisting that we consider a second referendum—a confirmatory or ratificatory referendum, or whatever we want to call it—because I sincerely believe that Brexit will be a disaster for our country, and one that will cost us and future generations in lost trade, revenues and opportunities. I equally believe that it is a disaster for us to be dividing the country on this issue, as we have been, in respect of our values and the other crucial things we hold in concert.

[John Redwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I will not. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken a lot already.

It was deeply destructive for us to have engaged in Brexit and unleashed a catalytic force of destructive politics, not just in this country but across the west. It is to my eternal regret that Parliament launched down this route without being sufficiently vigilant or diligent with regard to the risks we faced in the referendum or the nature of the referendum we were offering to the country. It was a profoundly flawed referendum in many ways, and one that many across the House feel could have been dramatically improved with greater scrutiny and care. Why did we not offer that scrutiny? I do not think that many Members on either side of the debate seriously thought we would lose. There was a widespread view that the referendum was agreed for ideological reasons—to solve the culture wars that have raged in the Tory party for 30-odd years—and it was not considered carefully enough.

The House has an opportunity to make amends for the mistake that we—not the people—made. The people voted on the terms and the question we offered them, with the information we provided and on the basis of the 50%-plus-1 margin we put into statute. We have an opportunity to rectify some of those mistakes, and I feel that we should. We should follow the view of the Brexit Secretary when he was on the Back Benches, and, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, we should have a final confirmatory referendum.

We had a mandate referendum, the result of which was that we should leave the EU, but we do not know what the terms of that leaving will be. It is perfectly legitimate for us to consider what they might be. It would not be to deny democracy to do that; it would be to double down on it. The problem with simply pushing for a vote in this place on the terms of the deal is that we run the risk of leaving the people doubly dissatisfied. It is perfectly possible for this House to reject the prospect of our falling out of the European Union on WTO terms, because of the costs that will become apparent when we see the extra costs for our car production, for chemicals, for financial services and for all the other things that would see their tariff price rise for export out of this country. It is perfectly possible, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield said, that we start to see a change in the country’s views in respect of Brexit when those things happen.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord Redwood and Owen Smith

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I will not give way again.

The problem with this change is that it will simply compound that fundamental mistrust. Before the last election, the Prime Minister said, on live national television, that he was not going to cut child tax credits, but he is going to do so. That was a fundamental misleading of the British public. Other Ministers also made categorical statements. When asked whether the Conservative party would cut tax credits, one of them said:

“"No; we are going to freeze them for two years; we are not going to cut them.”

That was a fundamental untruth, and the country knows it.

Unfortunately, when that is added to the Government’s smoke and mirrors and what they say about how they intend to offset the impact of these cuts, it is clear that we as a group—and the Conservatives as a political party—are deepening what is already a profound mistrust in our politics. For the Conservatives to describe themselves as the workers’ party is laughable. Theirs is the party that is cutting the incomes of the workers of Britain, and they should be ashamed of that. They should stand up today and vote with us for new clause 1, and repeal the tax credit cuts.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Prosperity, not austerity: that is what we want. My consistent advice to Ministers dealing with economic matters and benefits is that they should always have at the forefront of their minds the need for everything they do to promote less austerity and more prosperity for the many, because we wish to have a more prosperous people. The outlines of how we do that are clear, and I fully support the Government’s vision and objectives.

The first thing to do is promote work. We need to make sure that people come out of unemployment and into work; that people who are working part-time but want to work full-time have the opportunity to go on to work full-time; and that people in full-time work that is not well paid have the chance to be promoted into a better-paid job, and to get better skills and training and work with their employer so that they can have a more productive and better-paid job. In that area, this Government and the predecessor coalition have been so much more successful than the Labour Government of 2005 to 2010. We know how austerity for the many is created: by following the Labour Government’s policies of 2005 to 2010, when they increased borrowing and spending, and combined that with over-lax regulation of bank capital and cash, which I warned them about prior to the crunch. When they put those three things in a heady mix, they brought the economy down, a large number of people lost their job altogether, a large number had to take a pay cut to keep their job and most people lost their bonuses or their opportunities to work overtime because the great recession that was unleashed on this country did so much damage. The first thing, therefore, that the British people want is to be secure in the knowledge that the economic policies being used are prudent and sensible, so that there is more chance of more people working and of people having better- paid jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

Yes, some people cannot increase their hours or, for good reason, do not want to increase them because they are already working long hours. I have already described the actions they or their employers can take, and that the Government can encourage. We want these people to have better opportunity and more skill, and to work with their employers to raise productivity to justify pay rises. The Government, with the full support of the Opposition, are using the force of the law to increase minimum wages, as part of the policy of driving wages upwards. But the only way we can succeed in getting wages in this country up to levels we would all find acceptable is through a productivity revolution. It has to come by working smarter and better, not necessarily by working longer hours or by working harder, with the right investment and the right back-up from employers, so that people can earn more and justify higher earnings.

[Owen Smith]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that we are talking about two tribes here? It is not necessarily people who are on working tax credits who are on the minimum wage—indeed, the overlap is only about 25%, so an increase in the minimum wage will miss 75% of those tax credit recipients.

[John Redwood]

I do not think it is very nice to say that people belong to “tribes”; we are in one country and we are trying to promote the greater prosperity of the many. I am surprised by that lapse of language, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that some people who will face a reduction in tax credits are not going to benefit from the minimum wage because they are already earning more than that. That is clearly true.

[Owen Smith]

It is 75%—

[John Redwood]

If the hon. Gentleman would listen carefully, he would know that that is why I say I support a strategy for prosperity that first promotes more people into better pay. I am not just talking about those who are currently on a low wage; I want someone on a better wage also to have the opportunity for more pay. Some of my constituents do; they will be promoted, they will work for smart employers in smarter ways, and they will get pay rises, although not all will. The more the Government can do to help, encourage and support, so that many more people can get those opportunities of better pay, the more we will like it. I hope the Opposition parties will agree that that is the best way to greater prosperity. It is also the best way to better jobs. If someone goes to work every day thinking that next year they might have a better job, a pay rise or a bonus they can benefit from, they will go with more of a spring in their step than if they are going to a low-paid job with a bad employer who is not giving them any options and not giving them a break in life. [Interruption.] I see that some Opposition Members think that that is a funny idea, but I hope they would join me in recommending this approach to employers in their constituency as well as in mine, as that is how we create a more prosperous society. I am just trying to stress that we also need to get taxes down.

That deals with the second pillar of this excellent strategy. We need better work and more better-paid work, and less tax on that work so that people are more prosperous. We then come to the difficult bit, which is the point of the row today, all of last week and probably all of next week, by the looks of how Parliament is going at the moment. The issue is: at what rate do you withdraw the benefits support as people become more prosperous because they are in work, not out of work, because they are in better-paid work and because they are paying less tax? There are difficult judgments to be made, and I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is in listening mode. I look forward to his autumn statement—unlike the Labour party, I will be looking at all three elements of the package. I will be looking at pay and tax, as well as benefit withdrawal.

Perhaps unlike Labour, I want to end up in a world where far fewer people are on benefits, because their pay and the tax cuts are sufficient to give them a better lifestyle. We will then have a more affordable welfare system that enables us to run an economic policy more likely to deliver better prospects, more jobs and more success for business. As some of my Conservative colleagues have sought to point out, the problem the Opposition face is that no answer is coming from them. We know that they were able to overspend, over-borrow and crash the economy. We are now waiting to hear from them about how they would get the money under control, were they to be trusted again with government. We know that they do not want to cut non-benefit expenditure, so surely they have to accept the case I am making: that we need to get more people out of benefits altogether, and that requires a combination of the good things—promoting work, promoting better pay and lower taxes—and the not-so-good things, such as actually having to make some difficult choices on benefits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who is being gracious in giving way. He talks about us all wanting to avoid a disincentive to work extra hours, but does he not accept that that disincentive will be increased by reducing the lower earnings threshold and increasing the taper, thereby increasing the amount of money that is taken away for every extra hour worked and every extra pound earned?

[John Redwood]

I have already been quite honest in saying that Governments face a difficult choice in this regard: do they want fewer people facing a sharper taper, or more people facing a gentler taper? There are no easy answers. I look forward to hearing the Government’s judgment when they have completed their listening and thinking. Again, the Opposition are refusing to see all three parts of the package. It is not possible to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question as simply as he would like, because working out whether people are better off or worse off, and by how much, depends on what else happens with taxation, rates of pay, inflation and all the other things that are going on.

My advice to the Government is that their strategy is absolutely right: get more from pay, more from tax cuts and then cut the benefits, because people will not need them as much. They must listen carefully to criticisms, for example if their changes are going too far and too fast, or if they catch some people we do not want to catch. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will want to return to those points in his autumn statement and tell us his thinking. However, the direction of travel must not be simply to make big increases in benefits again; it must be to find other answers so that more people can enjoy prosperity from work, earnings and lower taxes.