Access to Redress Schemes
Debate between Lord Beamish and Christopher Chope(8 months ago)
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Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord), and I am grateful to him for introducing this important subject. I am sorry that it has not attracted more attention from hon. Members on both sides of the House.
How often have we said, “There is nothing new under sun”? I will start my remarks by referring to August 1975. Tanya Price had a whooping cough vaccine at the age of six months. Shortly after, she developed convulsions, and 18 months later, she was described as a “motionless and expressionless being” in a debate in this House by her MP, the late Robert Adley, who was my predecessor but one as MP for Christchurch, although at that time the constituency was Christchurch and Lymington. Robert Adley worked tirelessly for months to try to obtain redress from the health service for Tanya’s injuries, which were caused by the whooping cough vaccine.
That was 48 years ago, under a Labour Government, but little has changed in the Government’s institutional reluctance to admit to medical failures and institute redress schemes. Robert Adley described fighting Tanya’s battle as fighting the NHS, which he described as being like
“sparring with a giant octopus.”
That was all those years ago, but I do not see that the situation has changed. In his Adjournment debate in the House of Commons on 22 March 1977, Robert Adley said:
“This fight has been going on for a long time. Certainly in the last four years a group of parents have sought to get what they see as justice for their children but they have had precious little satisfaction. The battle is in many ways a repetition of the thalidomide debate…The result is decaying confidence in all the immunisation programmes. It represents a flirtation with tragedy, particularly when most of the other vaccines appear to be safe, harmless and have little or no disadvantageous side effects.”
He rightly severely criticised
“the position adopted by the Secretary of State in his refusal to consider compensation, and until…recently, his refusal…at least…to discuss the problem openly”.—[Official Report, 22 March 1977; Vol. 928, c. 1244.]
It would be wonderful to say that things have moved on. One of the consequences of the thalidomide scandal was the setting up of the royal commission headed by Lord Pearson, which took some five years to report, eventually doing so in 1978. It was set up following the Robens Committee on Safety and Health at Work, and in the light of concern about thalidomide. When the Pearson report was published, it was welcomed by the then Prime Minister as a comprehensive review. It was designed to remove unnecessary litigation, time delays and all the rest when getting redress for people who had suffered medical injuries induced by vaccines or other drugs. Paragraph 1,398—it was a long report—recommended the following:
“We concluded that there is a special case for paying compensation for vaccine damage where vaccination is recommended by a public authority and is undertaken to protect the community. We had reached this conclusion when we were asked by the Government for our views.”
The Pearson Committee also recommended strict liability for vaccine damage.
Sadly, those recommendations were not implemented, although we did get the vaccine damage payments legislation of 1979. I have been campaigning to get that legislation brought up to date, so that it is relevant to the circumstances of all those who have suffered loss and damage as a result of doing the right thing and taking their covid-19 vaccine. It has been an uphill struggle. The most recent information I have is that there are so many applications under the vaccine damage payment scheme that the Government cannot cope. In three years, only 163 out of more than 9,000 claims have been successful—those were the figures as at 31 January. Of those claims, 4,000 were still awaiting a resolution; 2,000 have been outstanding for more than six months, and some for more than 18 months. That is directly damaging to all those people who are thinking of engaging in civil claims, which the Government keep advising victims to do.
Making a civil claim against a large multinational pharmaceutical company—or the Government, for that matter—is an expensive business. I have a constituent whose father has the £120,000 compensation, but for whom that is wholly inadequate because of the severity and longevity of the injuries and disabilities that he sustained as a result of the vaccine. He is finding it nigh on impossible to get access to justice, because solicitors will not take up his calls. Even starting an action will cost tens of thousands of pounds. That is an intolerable situation, and one which, all those years ago, Lord Pearson was trying to avoid.
The Government’s feeble response is, “If you think you’ve been injured by a vaccine, go and seek compensation through the courts.” It does not work quite like that, as sadly has been seen by all those people whose cases it has already been established were caused by vaccines. One would think that if the vaccine damage payment scheme has established that an individual’s damage was caused by the vaccine, as night follows day, the Government would concede liability in a civil action. Far from it; they insist that individuals must fight the case before the courts.
Mr Kevan Jones
It is about power, is it not? As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the individual does not have the financial means or expertise to take forward those cases against either a corporation or a Government. In the Post Office scandal, the Post Office spent £100 million of our public money defending a case that they knew they would not win, because they were trying to stop the truth coming out and to bankrupt and stop the individuals from concluding the case.
Sir Christopher Chope
That is right. These are deep-seated institutional failures. This is not a party political issue, but one that affects everyone in this country. This House is unable to persuade Governments and the officials serving them to get real about what many people are suffering as a result of the delays. It seems as though the Government’s policy, perhaps led by the Treasury, is always to postpone the inevitable. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton referred to the contaminated blood scandal. I find it unacceptable that those people whose cases have been established as deserving proper compensation are still waiting. There are similar cases in the Post Office scandal, as the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, and in the sodium valproate case, which has given rise to huge reports, which I hope briefly to come to later.
Going back to the issue with which I am primarily concerned, because I chair the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage, there are now getting on for 10,000 claims under the scheme. Almost half are yet to be dealt with, so people are waiting for their claims to be resolved. Under the system that operates, if their claim is rejected by the independent panel, they have the right to have their case reviewed. That process itself generates further delays, sometimes in excess of a year. Meanwhile, there is a three-year limitation on being able to bring civil actions from the time the cause of the civil action arose.
I raised this issue with the Prime Minister in a private meeting and at Prime Minister’s questions a few weeks ago. I am pleased to say that, following that, I have a meeting set up with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care next week. But I will not hold my breath, because I just do not see any willingness on the part of officialdom, even if there was willingness on the part of Ministers, to address these outrageous injustices. It goes to the heart of trust in public service and in Government if people cannot trust the Government to do the right thing. If they take the vaccine and it turns out to have been very bad for their health, the deal should be—it always used to be—that the Government look after them and see them right, but that is not what is happening. Instead, those people are being put through the ringer, and enormous amounts of bureaucracy and time are being wasted, and to very little effect—except that the Treasury can probably say, “Well, we can’t actually guarantee that we will have to spend this amount of money now.”
Years ago, when I was a shadow Treasury Minister, I looked at the issues arising from the Equitable Life scandal. That was a failure by the Treasury’s own team of regulators to protect investors in pension schemes under Equitable Life. At one stage they were thought to be as good as investing in the Consolidated Fund. You may remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, that everybody was joining in having Equitable Life pensions. Well, the regulator was asleep on the job. The ombudsman found that that was the situation and ordered compensation. The Government refused compensation and said that they would make ex-gratia payments. As is the case today, we know that much of the money that was eventually set aside has not yet been delivered to the victims of the Equitable Life scandal, and that the Treasury is refusing to distribute the money, saying “Well, that is basically a win for the Treasury.” Is it surprising that confidence in our institutions and in government—with a small “g”—is rapidly diminishing?
Today’s debate is of fundamental importance. I hope that the Cabinet Minister, when he responds, will come up with some specific proposals on what will be done in relation to all the individual cases that will be referred to in this debate, as well as dealing with the deep-seated institutional problems to which I have referred. The Minister without Portfolio, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), with whom I have previously raised this matter in Cabinet Office questions, and who at one stage I thought would respond to this debate, is charged with ensuring that we address the issue of the time bar on covid-19 vaccine damage claims. I would be very grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister if, when he responds to the debate, he can give us some positive news on that point, even if not on many others.
The covid vaccine damage payment scheme is not a strict liability scheme, and it is not even a compensation scheme, but it is better than nothing. Why is it, however, that the £120,000 maximum payment under the scheme has not been updated since 2007? It would now be about £200,000 if updated. Why are we updating everything else in line with inflation, but not the vaccine damage payment scheme for people for whom taking a vaccine was disastrous? Again, we cannot get any answers out of the Treasury or the Government. Sometimes there are expressions of sympathy, but they are not much use. What we want is action. What justification can there be for eroding the value of vaccine damage payments to the extent that I have referred to?
The Cumberlege report, “Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review”, was set up in 2018 in response to concerns about the Primodos hormone pregnancy test, the use of sodium valproate in pregnancy and vaginal mesh. The review, which was led by Baroness Cumberlege, published its report in July 2020. It made a number of serious and compelling recommendations, including the establishment of an independent redress agency. If the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, who introduced the debate, thinks that the Government are going to respond positively to the suggestions he put forward, I just ask him to look at the record. That was an ex-Conservative Health Minister making a clear recommendation, on page 11, to set up an independent redress agency:
“A new independent Redress Agency for those harmed by medicines and medical devices should be created based on models operating effectively in other countries. The Redress Agency will administer decisions using a non-adversarial process with determinations based on avoidable harm looking at systemic failings, rather than blaming individuals.”
How long did it take for the Government to respond to that report? They published their response not in 2020 but in July 2021, exactly one year later, which fits the pattern we are discussing. It took them a year to respond to the report and they cursorily rejected its recommendation for a new redress agency, stating:
“We do not accept this recommendation. We do not believe that a redress agency would make products safer and support our commitment to patient safety. We also believe it is already possible for government and others to provide redress where this is considered necessary, the government therefore has no plans to establish an independent redress agency.”
It took the Government a year to prepare that wording and explanation. All one can do, really, is despair. There is an opportunity today for the Minister to say, “Well, that was all under a previous Government. Now we have a new Government and they will accept all the recommendations of the Cumberlege report.”
The Cumberlege report also recommended that discretionary schemes should be established for sodium valproate, hormone pregnancy tests and pelvic mesh. That would
“provide discretionary payments for the costs of additional needs”
caused by the harms associated with those products. The Government response also rejected that recommendation, noting:
“Patients have the right to take healthcare providers to court for clinical negligence, or manufacturers to court for product liability.”
It further explains on page 23:
“While the government is sympathetic to the experiences of those patients who gave evidence to the report, our primary focus is on improving future medicines and medical devices safety. It is therefore crucial that we focus government funds on initiatives that directly improve future safety (including specialist mesh centres and support for families affected by medicines in pregnancy). For this reason, redress schemes will not be established in response to recommendation 4.”
That was the situation in relation to the hapless individuals who were at the wrong end of that particular NHS procedure. More recently, and before we have got as far as any inquiries into it, we have been faced with the prospect of having to deal with the scandal of all those young people who are living with the consequences of being given puberty blockers at the behest, if not the recommendation, of the NHS. When Sir Chris Whitty was asked about that on the radio earlier this week, he seemed totally unapologetic, almost to the point of diffidence, although he was insistent that we should do something about people who were engaging in smoking tobacco or vapes. So another compensation issue will arise in relation to all those people who were persuaded by the NHS to do the wrong thing.
One recommendation that did come out of the Cumberlege review was for the establishment of—this sounded really great—a patient safety commissioner for England. When, in my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage, I approached Dr Hughes and asked whether she would take up the case of the victims of covid-19 vaccines, she was very sympathetic, but said—and this comes back to the issue of the culture—that she had only the equivalent of one man and a dog in her department. She was being starved of the resources that would enable her to fulfil the remit that she had been given by the Government, which, again, was absolutely intolerable. She explained that she did not have time to deal with the vaccine damage issue because, perfectly reasonably, she was concentrating on sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. On 7 February this year she published her report setting out further recommendations for redress in relation to those matters, including a recommendation for the creation of an independent redress scheme to provide both financial and non-financial redress. The Government have not yet responded to that report; perhaps the Minister will respond to it today. In February, in response to a parliamentary question, the Health Minister responsible said:
“The Government is now carefully considering the… recommendations, and will respond substantively in due course.”
That is just not good enough, especially as the Government seem to be relying on some very feeble initiatives to which they have drawn attention.
There is now—this is exciting news, Madam Deputy Speaker—a new risk acknowledgment form to be completed by those for whom valproate is prescribed. There is also a “claims gateway” on the NHS Resolution website for those wishing to embark on clinical negligence claims. The Hughes report criticises these arrangements, and criticises the “claims gateway” description because there is no new legal framework to enable people to engage in litigation and no guarantee of help with legal aid. We hear that a child who challenged the decision by a north London comprehensive in relation to the wearing of religious symbols received legal aid money amounting to £150,000. How was that possible, when people who want redress because they have been done down by the national health service do not get anything at all?
In the foreword to her report, Dr Hughes says
“the case for redress had already been made by the First Do No Harm review so my report would primarily focus on ‘how’ to provide redress rather than ‘why’.”
I hope that, in his response today, the Minister will accept that the Government should now focus on how to provide redress rather than why redress is needed. In her foreword, Dr Hughes also says:
“All those we spoke to have approached this process with openness and goodwill despite the considerable challenges they face. As time progresses, these challenges intensify and, understandably, there is now a growing sense of frustration and anger among patients. Confidence in the government to do the right thing is eroding.
Over the years, while these patients have been suffering, I have seen other healthcare scandals in this country rightly receive recognition and redress, from thalidomide to vCJD and, most recently, the infected blood scandal. Fairness demands that those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh receive the recognition and redress to meet their needs.”
If the Government agree with that, why do they not say so now? Why are they continuing to kick the can down the road and deny people access to the compensation that they rightfully deserve?
I have spoken for longer than I expected, Madam Deputy Speaker, but, as I have said, there is a long history to this. I hope it will not be another 48 years before another Member of Parliament for Christchurch stands up and says, “48 years ago, a former Member for Christchurch was arguing this very point in the House.” Let us learn from history. Let us not be complacent; let us get angry for action.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Lord Beamish and Christopher Chope(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Jones
No, as I am about to finish.
My hon. Friend made the point about the rest of the United Kingdom and there is a need for that convention. If we do not get that, we will have this patchwork quilt of so-called devolution which will not be in the interests not only of all of our constituents but of the UK as a whole.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
The last two and a half hours have been fascinating, and show what this Chamber should be about. The Government and the Opposition Front Benches have come in with their own ideas and during the course of the debate it has become apparent that the new clause of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has captured the imagination of the Committee and has superseded amendment 89 proposed by the Scottish nationalist party, and I say to the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie)—[Interruption.] I say to the hon. Member for Dundee East that I think he has made a very wise decision in saying he is going to bring the full weight of his party in Parliament behind my hon. Friend’s new clause. It is much clearer than his party’s amendment. The hon. Gentleman should get credit for that. Governments and official Oppositions are often reluctant to change the line they have taken when faced with strong arguments against it.
In the course of this debate, my hon. Friend has shown that new clause 3 finds favour with a large number of Members across this Committee. I support it because it would do what is stated in the explanatory statement:
“entirely remove the remaining reservations over financial and economic matters, home affairs, trade and industry, energy, transport, social security, regulation of the professions, employment, health and medicines, media and culture and other miscellaneous matters. The consent of the Treasury would be needed for any changes in old age pensions which would affect the liabilities of the National Insurance Fund.”
So, by giving full fiscal autonomy to the Scottish Parliament, we would also be giving it full fiscal responsibility. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in an intervention, that is an important and worthwhile matter.
My constituents are worried about the mix and match approach, however. When I had the privilege of being a member of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, we took evidence in Scotland. One of the most telling pieces of evidence came from an academic—I cannot remember which university he came from—who said that shared responsibility would be a recipe for conflict. That has been the problem: for too long, we have been sharing these responsibilities between one part of the United Kingdom and another, with one part being played off against the other. That has meant that those wanting to promote a particular agenda have been given ammunition, because they have been able to argue that the sharing of the responsibility has been ill defined. It is almost invariably ill defined and open to interpretation. Indeed, some of the evidence we heard suggested that such disputes would ultimately have to be determined by the courts. It was suggested that the courts in the United Kingdom would determine what Parliament had decided on a particular split or shared responsibility. What a recipe for conflict and division!
The new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough has great clarity and takes the debate forward by leapfrogging other proposals. Obviously it could not be implemented instantly, but it would not leave the matter of when to introduce full fiscal autonomy to the discretion of the Scottish Parliament, as amendment 89 proposes. Instead, new clause 3 would ensure that this Parliament would agree now on full fiscal autonomy for the Scottish Parliament. That would be a good way for this Parliament to say to the Scottish people that we respect their decision in the recent general election and that we respect the decision of their elected representatives, as enunciated by the hon. Member for Dundee East, to support this new clause.
I hope that new clause 3 will also find favour with the Secretary of State for Scotland, whom I am delighted to see sitting on the Front Bench preparing to respond to the debate. He gave evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on several occasions during the last Parliament. At that stage, only some members of the Committee—I included myself among the optimists—thought that it would not be long before he became a fully fledged Secretary of State for Scotland. It is wonderful that that has come to pass.
This is an important debate, not least because it will sort out the problem of the Barnett formula by effectively abolishing the need for it. The formula is very unpopular with my constituents because, whenever they argue for free prescriptions, free long-term care for the elderly or free university tuition, they are told that these things cannot be afforded in England, yet they somehow can be afforded in Scotland. At the same time, however, they point out that they are paying £1,600 a head to Scotland, so it cannot be a matter of those things being unaffordable in England; rather, it is something to do with the Barnett formula. The new clause would resolve that issue and help to bring the United Kingdom back together with less conflict than there would be if we allowed the “too little, too late” agenda to be perpetuated.
Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Beamish and Christopher Chope(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I am delighted to be regarded as the true face of the Conservative party, but I am also very pleased that there are lots of other true faces of the Conservative party present to listen to this debate. Not everyone recalls the great excitement that there was in the Conservative party and on the Conservative Benches back in 1989 when the then Secretary of State for Health, who is now the Justice Secretary, said that he was going to introduce tax relief for health insurance premiums. That policy, which was announced in a health White Paper and then put into practice in the 1990 Budget by Nigel Lawson, was the action of a self-confident Conservative Government. That same self-confidence carried on through the years when John Major was Prime Minister, and right up to 2001, when a proposal to restore the relief, which had been taken away by the mean Labour Government, was in our manifesto. Since then, we seem to have rather lost our way.
Mr Kevan Jones
I would never accuse the hon. Gentleman of losing his way, but can he remember why the Labour Government did that? It was not just because the relief was unfair but because they went on to use part of the money to reduce the VAT on heating fuel.
Mr Chope
That was the excuse put forward at the time, but I doubt whether it was the real justification. I suspect that the real justification was a feeling on the part of a lot of socialists—people on the Labour side of the House—who resented the idea that the health service should in any way be funded by the private sector. The problem we have in this country is that although our health service is funded by taxpayer money to the extent of most health services across the G7 or G8 countries, we lag behind those other countries in that we do not have enough private sector contributions to the health service. That is why the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) is brilliant, because it sends out a very strong signal to people that we want to encourage them to participate in and contribute to the cost of their health care.
It is good for people to contribute to the cost of their health care, and that of their family, if they can afford so to do. Some people who can afford to do that pay for their health care outright: in a sense, they pay as they go. Others who can afford to do that pay through insurance policies. Yet others who can afford to do that do not make a contribution at all, because they believe that it is in the national interest that the whole cost of their health care should be borne by other taxpayers, many of whom are less well-off than they are. Those are the three categories, and we should try to move more people from the category of those who could afford to pay for, or contribute towards, their health care but do not, into the category of those who do contribute.
Mr Jones
I totally disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but I understand where he is coming from. However, the scheme introduced in the 1980s did not do what he wants. It basically just gave a tax cut to about 500,000 people who already had private plans, so it did not work the last time it was tried.
Mr Chope
Obviously, the Treasury will always say that there is what is described as a dead-weight cost associated with such initiatives, in that people who would be paying for health insurance anyway would get the tax relief—but that is looking at only part of the issue. What I am trying to do—as is my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley in his new clause—is to encourage more people to come into that category, so that we grow that cohort of people. We certainly do not want to allow that cohort to be reduced, as it inevitably is when people who were on schemes provided by their employers retire and lose that provision. Taking on that burden, or responsibility, for themselves is a significant expense; my hon. Friend’s new clause would not eliminate that cost, but it would reduce it by a useful amount.
Mr Chope
Exactly. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a lot of resentment about the fact that people who arrive in this country can latch on to the health service, at no cost to themselves, when they have not made any contribution at all. The new clause would give people who have been making a contribution, either through their employers or by paying insurance premiums themselves, a bit of help in the form of tax relief when they retire. We are talking about modest sums, but that would send a useful message and be an incentive.
Mr Kevan Jones
If we were designing a system to increase the number of people with private health insurance, would not this proposal be a very inefficient way of doing it? I must draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the Institute for Fiscal Studies and King’s Fund report, which showed that when the scheme was abolished, 0.7% of people—4,000 people—gave up their policy. It strikes me that for most people, the scheme was a not a great incentive to buy health insurance.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman quotes figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that go back, I think, to 2001—10 years ago. What concerns me is that there has been no update of those figures. If my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whom I am delighted to see on the Front Bench, comes forward with up-to-date statistics that show that the Government have been considering the issue seriously, obviously I will listen to his arguments, as I always do.
I am concerned that the issue has become one that the coalition Government do not want to discuss, and they are not prepared to commission research into it. They are not prepared to consider the argument put forward by my hon. Friends and myself that our proposal would generate more private sources of income for the health service. The Government are going for the simplistic version and concentrating on the idea that there would be an up-front dead-weight cost. There might be, but that would be outweighed by the other benefits.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think, and some of the research suggests, that when people contribute directly to the cost of their health care they take a greater interest in outcomes and hold the health service to account to a greater extent than when they can be told, “It’s all free, so what do you expect?” We talk about the health service being free at the point of delivery, which of course it is, but I want a health service that is available at the point of need, and the two things are very different. That is the gap that exists at the moment. A little more private sector resource, which would relieve some of the burden on the taxpayer or complement taxpayer resources, would be a good thing.
Mr Kevan Jones
Where is the evidence for that? The old scheme that the hon. Gentleman says was so great clearly did not do that, for example in relation to waiting lists. It would cost £140 million, and it would be far better if that money went into the health service to improve care for all, rather than to the small section of society that he is trying to benefit.
Mr Chope
Of course, the original scheme was brought in on the basis that it would apply to everyone over the age of 60, and initially would give full tax relief to higher-rate taxpayers, so the figures would be nothing like as high under the new clause, because its proposals would apply only to people over 65, and would give only 20% in tax relief.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The proposal is not subtle at all and his personal example is a good one. Why should someone who loses a spouse in an accident or through natural causes be penalised because, through no fault of their own, they have lost their spouse? That is the problem with trying to use tax in relation to marriage. As I have said, the measure is very different from what was put forward in the Conservative manifesto because it does not include civil partnerships. It clearly is not what Conservative Back Benchers have read in their own manifesto.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman knows that there are always winners and losers in any tax system. I am very surprised at him because I know that he has very libertarian views on a whole host of subjects, which we have heard on many occasions in the Chamber. Is he really suggesting that we should use the tax system socially to engineer society by saying that people should marry rather than cohabiting or, as has been mentioned, becoming single through separation or bereavement? I am surprised at him because I thought he was very much against the state doing anything, but the measure has the state wanting to determine or influence exactly what an ideal society should be. I am sorry, but the statistics just do not bear out what the hon. Gentleman proposes. If such tax measures worked as a way of bolstering marriage and keeping families together, we would have expected marriages to rise with the married man’s tax allowance through the 1960s and 1970s, but they did exactly the opposite—we had record levels of divorce and separation. Hon. Members should look at the facts. Tax measures have not succeeded in doing that in the past, and I doubt whether they will in future. They certainly will not encourage anyone to get married for a small financial benefit.
It is important to dispel one myth, which has been put forward again by the Conservative party—the fact that a wicked Labour Government somehow did away with the married couple’s tax allowance and that Labour is responsible for the degeneration of society that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions describes in his report. It is important to recognise what the previous Conservative Government did on this. It was Chancellor Norman Lamont in the 1993 Budget who proposed that the married couple’s tax allowance should be restricted to 20% from April 1994. That was the first time that happened for the basic MCA, which for a couple under 65 was then £1,720, so it was worth something like £608 for those who were on marginal rates of 40%, but only £344 for those on marginal rates of 20%. We then had the argument that it was unfair to have different amounts for people on higher tax rates than for those on lower tax rates. The then Chancellor said:
“There is no good reason why an allowance intended to recognise the responsibilities of marriage should give least to those on low incomes and most to those right at the top of the income scale.”—[Official Report, 16 March 1993; Vol. 221, c. 182.]
In the November 1993 Budget, the current Justice Secretary confirmed that change and went on to announce that the MCA would be further restricted to 15% from April 1995, so there was a slow change in the system. The provision restricting the MCA was made in section 77 of the Finance Act 1994. When this was debated in Committee, there was general support for the idea that the MCA should be the same across the board.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a key point and I understand why she makes it. This goes right back to when income tax was introduced in the 1790s, when a spouse’s income was the property of the husband. That was the basis on which income tax was brought in and it continued for centuries. There was no recognition that even within marriages people might have separate tax affairs or sources of income that needed to be recognised.
It is interesting to look back at the debate that took place about the MCA. Baroness Maddock, who was then a Member of this House, argued that the MCA was
“a relic of the days when a husband was taxed on his wife’s income as well as on his own. It contravenes the principle that marriage should be tax neutral.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 22 February 1994; c. 344.]
Mr Jones
I am very pleased to hear that but I am not sure that that is very good news for the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) to whom I understand the Baroness is now married. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point.
Interestingly, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Michael Portillo, concurred with Mrs Maddock’s view. The then Chancellor, who is now the Justice Secretary, recognised that and announced in his Budget speech that there would be a two-stage restriction of the MCA, stating:
“Now that husbands and wives are taxed independently—one of the best taxation reforms in recent years—the married couple's allowance is a bit of an anomaly.”—[Official Report, 30 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 935.]
The important thing that this demonstrates is that change was taking place under a Conservative Government, and that it was not the wicked previous Labour Government who came up with this idea. However, the change did set off the forces who were arguing that the changes were wrecking marriages. In 1995, a major paper called “Farewell to the Family” appeared. It made much of the fact that the measure would change families and discourage people from marrying.
Mr Chope
In making a brief contribution to this very important debate, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) on getting it going. It came as a bit of surprise when my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) did not speak to the new clause, but I am delighted that she subsequently joined the debate to speak in support of it.
I come at this subject on the basis that the Prime Minister supports exactly what I support: recognising marriage in the tax system. He promised that the Government would recognise marriage in the tax system after the general election, and this debate rightly puts the focus on how that commitment will be implemented. I hope that when the Minister responds, he will say exactly when that is going to happen. Over a year ago, on 2 June 2010, the Prime Minister said:
“I believe that we should bring forward proposals to recognise marriage in the tax system. Those in our happy coalition will have the right to abstain on them, I am happy to say, but I support marriage. We support so many other things in the tax system, including Christmas parties and parking bicycles at work, so why do we not recognise marriage?”—[Official Report, 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 428.]
Those were excellent words from my right hon. Friend. Then, some three or four months later—
Mr Chope
No, I am not going to allow anybody to interfere with the words of the Prime Minister.
On 5 October 2010, the Prime Minister said:
“I have always supported the idea of supporting marriage through the tax system, specifically supporting the idea of a transferable tax allowance. The idea of a transferable tax allowance is in the coalition agreement.”
That is where my hon. Friend’s new clause comes in, because it calls for just that. One is entitled to ask why, having had two Budgets since the general election, we still do not have proposals to implement that very important pledge.
Labour Members are misrepresenting this proposal as an attempt to build new privileges for those who are in a marital relationship, but, as has been brought out time and again during the debate, the question is what we are going to do to prevent those who are married from suffering disadvantage under the tax system. That is what we are trying to put right with the new clause.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We are seeking a route towards a destination. The Prime Minister set out the clear destination, but so far we do not seem to have made any progress towards achieving it. What was set out in detail on the Conservative website at the time of the election was a very modest proposal, which talked about a small proportion of the tax allowance being transferable, with quite a tight maximum income threshold in order for people to be eligible. Even that modest proposal has not yet been put forward by the Government in the Finance Bill so that we can support it and implement it.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Gentleman has talked about the Prime Minister’s support for this proposal. Does he recognise that the Prime Minister included civil partnerships in what he said? If we agreed to this proposal tonight, civil partnerships would be excluded, which is clearly at odds with what the Prime Minister wants.
Mr Chope
If there is a defect in the wording of the new clause and it fails to recognise everything that the Prime Minister said—he certainly referred specifically to civil partnerships—the hon. Gentleman may have a point about that, but he does not have a point about much else, in my submission.
Business of the House
Debate between Lord Beamish and Christopher Chope(14 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Jones
Actually, I agree with programme motions, because any idiot in opposition who argues that Government legislation can somehow be got through without programme motions should be taken out to the nearest lunatic asylum. What we are talking about here, however, is House business, which is a different issue.
I find the situation facing us a little bit galling. To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, if we divide on the programme motion he may well join me in the No Lobby, and if so it will not be the first time he has voted against his party because he is an independent soul; and I am sure he will cause havoc to his party on many more occasions in the coming months and years. The important point here is that insufficient time is available to us tonight to examine in detail the complex measures that have been proposed.
It appears that we are being asked to agree to measures that raise questions as to whether we will be able to debate the issues involved again. For instance, motion 10 on the Order Paper, in the name of the Leader of the House, is on September sittings and it states:
“That this House reaffirms the importance of its function of holding the Government to account: and accordingly asks the Government to put to this House specific proposals for sitting periods in September 2010.”
Some of us were Members when the House last had September sittings, and they were a complete disaster in that there was never any business to debate. Frankly, it was just a public relations stunt, which might have made some people feel good—[Interruption.] There is no need to worry, as I am not going to debate September sittings; I shall return to the subject under discussion shortly.
There is a question to be asked, however. If we agree to this motion tonight, will the Government then allow another debate on what is being proposed, because the motion seems to give them carte blanche to impose September sittings? If we agree to the motion tonight, we will need to have a debate on September sittings in Government time. If that is not allowed, we will be denying something that is stated in the motion, in that we will not be reaffirming the importance of the
“function of holding the Government to account”.
Instead, we will in effect tonight be giving the Government a blank cheque to do exactly what they want in September, and that cannot be right.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman recall the business statement of, I think, the week before last, when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said he would propose the first two weeks in September this year as September sittings for this House, and that he would bring forward a motion to that effect for the House to vote on? Motion 10 does not seem quite to do what was suggested on that occasion.
Mr Jones
No, I think that first of all we need to have a debate on whether we should have September sittings at all, because some of us think they are a complete waste of time. Last time, they descended into farce, in that we had two weeks of basically Opposition day after Opposition day and endless pointless debates.