The Economy

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Peter Dowd

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend refers to just some of the many thousands of workers who have been let down by this Tory Government. We all walk past people sleeping rough on the streets every day, but what have the Government done about that? Nothing. Despite endless promises of jam tomorrow, there looks to be little respite ahead under this Government. Their approach to this is writ large by the smirks on the faces of the members of the Government Front Bench.

Manufacturing output in August dropped at the fastest pace in seven years, with EU-based customers rerouting supply chains away from the UK in anticipation of 31 October. Consumer and business confidence is tumbling. Anecdotally, we know that a worrying proportion of businesses are moving their operations and investment elsewhere.

My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor said:

“We have heard the Prime Minister’s previous crude dismissal of British business. Now we are seeing his words become Government policy.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2019; Vol. 664, c. 1650.]

Businesses are responding in droves. The Centre for European Reform says that the economy is already £69 billion smaller as a result of Tory turmoil and uncertainty since the Brexit vote. That is their responsibility on their watch—nobody else’s. Time and again, they put party over country while the economy suffers. The Government’s false dichotomy of no deal versus a bad deal amounts to an attack on the economic wellbeing of our citizens. Our economy needs cast-iron guarantees of frictionless free trade and strong regulatory alignment with the European Union. It needs a targeted industrial strategy to turn the biggest threat of our time into an economic opportunity, but not with the Tories.

The only threat we face that is equal to the continuation of this Government is the climate emergency. We need a green industrial revolution: a rapid and far-reaching transformation of the UK’s infrastructure, from our homes to our transport and energy systems. That requires investment on a scale that makes the Government’s programme pale into insignificance. Labour is offering—

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Dowd]

I am sorry, but I will not at this stage.

Labour is offering a national transformation fund and a national investment bank that would invest £500 billion of lending and spending over 10 years, with tackling climate change as a central mission—a concept alien to that lot over there. It will include targeted investment to develop and commercialise new technologies so that they are designed here, assembled here, installed by a well-paid unionised workforce here, and then exported to the rest of the world. It is a far-reaching programme of economic revival that will create the industries of the future here. This is a Government of yesterday. We are the Government of tomorrow.

With its wind and marine resources, the UK has some of the best potential in the world for renewable energy. Renewable energy should be to the UK what tech has been to California, but the Government’s failure to support these nascent industries has held us back. We should be building on our existing strengths, such as the automotive sector, which could, with the right support, lead the world in electric vehicle and battery production. At the Labour party conference, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), the shadow Business Secretary, announced a multibillion-pound package of investment to kick-start the electric revolution. That is the scale of targeted support that our automotive industry needs—not just green number plates. Today, she announced plans to create a carbon-neutral energy system by the 2030s, including insulation upgrades for every home in the UK and enough new solar panels to cover 22,000 thousand football pitches, including Anfield.

This is not just about avoiding a climate catastrophe. The green industrial revolution is about building the world we deserve, not the world that the Tories think we deserve. We will ensure that nothing is too good for the working people of this country. We can tackle climate change while transforming our economy so that it works for the many, not just the privileged few.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, this is not the time for despair; it is the time for action. I hope the Chancellor—hope does spring eternal—will act by accepting amendment (g) so we can begin to rebuild our economy in the interests of the many, not the few. Under this Government of yesterday, I will not hold my breath.

Income Tax

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Peter Dowd

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

The Minister said that he got support from businesses for tax relief. Well, that is not a surprise: when people are offered tax reliefs, they will accept them because it is cash in their pocket.

In a document published on 5 March last year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that our current tax system

“does not consistently deduct the cost of investment meaning that some investments are discouraged, some are incentivised and some are unaffected by the tax system.”

It went on to say that there should be

“a clear policy justification”,

which should be focused, and that we should ensure

“that the benefits outweigh the costs.”

The document also said:

“Too many reliefs have weak or poorly articulated policy aims”,

and that

“digging into the details and evaluating how each relief stacks up against a clearly stated tax design”

is important. It continued:

“The bar for introducing any new relief should be high.”

On the very same night, the Chartered Institute of Taxation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies had a debate about business tax reliefs, which asked whether they were

“corporate welfare or essential elements of the tax system”.

The question is, do we think they are an essential element of the tax system? In the debate on the Finance Bill, we raised these matters, but we were not able in any way to amend the law, which is regrettable. However, we did raise, in a sense, the whole question of tax reliefs, and it is a desperate shame to find ourselves here again debating the introduction of what amounts to another corporate tax relief, when so little has been done to sort out the scope of the scores of tax reliefs already in operation.

At the last count, the Government were responsible for managing 115 principal tax reliefs totalling £430 billion, as well as 80 minor tax reliefs totalling an estimated £690 million. However, alongside those, there are up to 235 reliefs in operation for which we have no cost data at all. I repeat: we are forgoing revenue on 235 tax reliefs, but Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs does not count the cost. I find that quite remarkable. I cannot think of a single other policy area where the Treasury would be uninterested in Government expenditure.

Ministers tell us that the cost of these reliefs is negligible so there is no point making efforts to manage them more effectively. I do not believe that that holds water, especially when we consider that the Government regularly deprive citizens of small but essential sums of social security for the crime of being perhaps five minutes late to the jobcentre. Perhaps the Minister can explain why the Government can give away millions to large companies without counting the cost, while stripping the poorest in our society of the pounds and pence they need to survive. I ask that especially in the light of an interesting article by the Minister in The Sunday Times some weeks ago about our being one nation. It would be interesting to hear him comment on that. I agree with him that we have to bring the nation back together again, and that is an important part of this issue. I would also like to know what efforts the Government have made to improve the management of tax reliefs at HMRC. Will the Minister now commit to a moratorium on introducing further tax reliefs, unless the annual cost data on them can be collected and published by HMRC?

Turning to the measure before the House, it will not surprise anyone here that the pile of opaque and unaccountable tax reliefs is being added to, with yet another tax relief for businesses that does not necessarily fit the robust criteria set by the Institute for Fiscal Studies—criteria that this House should set in relation to the introduction of tax reliefs.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman was talking about the cost of tax reliefs. Has he worked out the cost to UK business and investment of imposing a policy that would requisition 10% of businesses that have more than 250 employees? I understand that that is Labour party policy.

[Peter Dowd]

I do not think it is a question of requisitioning; it is about a different approach and taking a different look at engaging workers in our economy. That is it—it is as simple as that. I appreciate and completely accept that the hon. Gentleman does not accept the concept, but that does not mean that the concept is wrong.

The Government boast about their corporation tax giveaways, but it is clear that even those billions, stripped from our public services, are not enough to satisfy their intentions in relation to corporate welfare. Furthermore, it seems that, in their rush to hand out giveaways, they have given no consideration to how this measure will fit into the already complex and convoluted system of capital allowances. It is not necessarily a question of saying whether I agree or disagree with these things; it is a question of saying we have a convoluted system—and it is incredibly complex. We do not have any review mechanisms of these reliefs, and we do not have any sunset clauses on them—in fact, we have debated that in Committee in the past, but the Government seem to have no response.

This new measure on structures and buildings allowances will, as the Minister said, provide relief for qualifying expenditure on new non-residential structures and buildings incurred on or after 29 October 2018 on a 2% per annum, straight-line basis. At the Finance Bill earlier this year, the Government blocked our attempts to require Ministers to publish details of the likely take-up of this new allowance across different-sized businesses.

Despite those concerns, the secondary legislation before us remains vague, with important definitions that would assist in addressing areas of ambiguity delayed and deferred to guidance. We have had lots of this deferral to guidance, secondary legislation and other things—potentially even tertiary legislation in due course. It really is not good enough. We need transparency and openness; we do not need to be told, “This is going to happen, but the detail may come a little later on.” Similarly, the decision by Ministers to delay finalising the details of this new allowance until June, when the final stages of the Finance Bill took place in January, is yet further evidence of the continued environment of uncertainty that business is forced to operate in under this Government.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation rightly criticised the Government over these new regulations, stating at the time of the 2018 Budget that

“it is neither sensible nor responsible for the government to introduce reliefs into the tax system at a time before they have consulted upon the scope and application of the relief or fully considered, and are therefore able to legislate for, the details of the relief.”

It concluded that these regulations will only complicate matters, particularly given that plant and machinery are excluded. That means that taxpayers are still required to identify the plant and machinery in buildings, with the same grey area that currently exists between buildings, fixtures, plant and machinery. The administration of this new allowance will be substantial and burdensome for businesses, flying in the face of the Government’s initial promise to simplify the tax system.

The demotion of much of the detail of this allowance to secondary legislation remains of great concern to the Opposition, particularly given that capital allowances are yet another means of extending tax breaks to large businesses, many of which do not necessarily need the relief. The reality is that many small and medium-sized businesses that desperately need support from the Government will struggle to access this relief without incurring substantial costs as a result of hiring tax experts to guide them through its complexities.

Rather than continuing this piecemeal approach, which seems only to confuse and deter businesses in need, Labour remains committed to carrying out a review of tax reliefs once in government to evaluate individual reliefs against their effectiveness and value for money. It seems that, again, this opaque Government will not commit either to a proper review of the measure before us or to a wider review of the full plethora of their corporate relief giveaways.

This is no way to run the country. Once again, the devil will be in the detail of the guidance that HMRC publishes, particularly when it comes to what constitutes qualifying expenditure, the definitions of terms such as “dwelling-house” and “mixed-use building”, and clarification of the treatment of successive leases and the new flexible rules in instances where expenditure is incurred after a building comes into use.

Although the Opposition remain sceptical about the introduction of yet another poorly-considered allowance on top of the 1,200 allowances that already exist—many of which have existed for decades without review—we will not be voting against the secondary legislation today. Instead, we will wait to scrutinise the guidance when HMRC publishes it later this year. [Interruption.] I can hear Ministers sniggering. A responsible Opposition will vote against something when they disagree with it and will support something when they agree with it. When we want to consider the detail, implications and other information that comes from the Government, we will hold back. That is what a responsible Opposition should do—not automatically vote against or support things willy-nilly—and that is what we are trying to do, because we are being responsible. Ministers can snigger at that responsible approach if they want to, but we will continue to be responsible, and we will continue to oppose this Government as and when we feel it is necessary to do so.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Peter Dowd

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give the Finance (No. 3) Bill a Second Reading because it derives from the 2018 Budget which confirmed the continuation of austerity and tax cuts for the wealthiest, failed to introduce a fair taxation system which protects middle and low earners but requires a greater contribution from the top 5 per cent of highest income earners, implied real terms per capita cuts for unprotected departments between 2019-20 and 2023-24, failed to halt roll-out of Universal Credit with planned social security cuts still to come, failed to raise the funding needed for mental health services, failed to provide the long-term funding needed for long-term adult social care, failed to provide adequate school funding, failed to address the funding gap that local councils face, failed to end the funding crisis facing public services, with police, teachers, nurses and doctors having no reassurances that the public sector pay squeeze will end in 2019, failed to tackle child poverty and growing inequality across our country, failed to tackle the fact that 87 per cent of the impact of the Government’s tax and benefit changes since 2010 has fallen on the shoulders of women, failed adequately to address climate change and delayed the much-needed reduction in the maximum stake for fixed-odds betting terminals until October 2019, and because the Bill is not based on an amendment of the law resolution, thus restricting the House’s ability to properly scrutinise and improve the Bill.

I have to give credit to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury: he managed to keep his face straight throughout his delivery. We had lots of flowery words from him, and I am surprised that we did not have phrases in his cliché-ridden speech such as “sunny uplands”, “green shoots of recovery” and “the end of the rainbow”. Why were those clichés not in his speech as well?

We have been asked to scrutinise a Finance Bill under the most difficult circumstances the Government could create, short of barring the Opposition from actually attending the House. The timetable set for the Bill meant we were expected to table amendments on Second Reading before the Bill had even been published—an abuse of power. To add insult to injury, printed copies of the explanatory notes to the Bill only arrived in the Vote Office earlier today. How busy Members are expected to provide proper scrutiny under these conditions is beyond me. It is an abuse of power. Worse still, the Government’s refusal to table an amendment to the law for the third Finance Bill in a row means that we will be unable to meaningfully amend this proposed legislation following Second Reading. As I said in my speech on the Budget resolutions, that is unprecedented. It is another abuse of power.

Last week, the President of the United States fired his Attorney General to undermine an investigation against him. Mr Trump also barred a journalist asking legitimate questions from the White House. Perhaps he gave the Prime Minister the odd tip on how to side-step conventions and constitutional process. Stitching up Committees with a false majority, obstructing scrutiny of the Finance Bill and giving a £1 billion bung to a minority party to keep the Prime Minister’s Government alive are further abuses of power. In any other country, we would use a word for this behaviour: malfeasance, plain and simple.

This is a desperate state of affairs, especially given how much the Bill is in need of change. The Government’s policies announced in the Budget fail to tackle a single one of the great challenges now facing this country after eight years of austerity. Most notably, this Bill of broken promises fails to end austerity, as the Prime Minister said it would during her conference speech—once she had finished gyrating. As our reasoned amendment points out, this promise has been broken: £4 billion of Tory social security cuts are still on their way. Only half the money cut from universal credit work allowances was returned to the programme. There was nothing on the social security freeze or the two-child limit.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the reasoned amendment, which refers to the long-term funding of adult social care. Two Select Committees, the Health and Social Care Committee and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, recommended a social insurance system in their inquiry’s report. Is he willing to support that cross-party recommendation as a solution to the future funding of adult social care?

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Gentleman needs to speak to his own Government about cross-party support. My party cannot discuss these issues in this Chamber, let alone outside it. He would be better off engaging with his own Government on these matters.

What we have in the Budget is more spent on potholes than on our schools, not a penny more for everyday policing or fire services and nothing to begin to unravel the 40% budget cuts that have taken place across local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

A Conservative Member of Parliament talking about opportunism! It is not quite as bad as the Liberal Democrats talking about opportunism, I grant you, but there we are—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Gentleman should worry about working people in his constituency who, overall, are £800 a year worse off after the longest fall in wages since the Napoleonic era—I suspect that one or two Government Members were here at the time. The Prime Minister has stood staring at the Brexit menu for two years while her Cabinet devours itself in the queue behind her.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

According to the economist David Smith, if Labour policies at the last election had been implemented, people who were earning between £100,000 and £120,000 a year would have been paying, on that element of their earnings, a marginal rate of taxation of 72%. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that that is a fair burden of taxation on earners at that level?

Customs and Borders

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Peter Dowd

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

The debate has been enlightening and I have welcomed the chance to listen to all the Members across the Chamber. I should like to thank the 12 cross-party Chairs of the Committees and the Liaison Committee for enabling us to explore this motion today, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who set the scene. I would also like to thank the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who said that we needed a proper debate. To some extent, we have had that debate today. The motion and the debate have set out in stark terms the overwhelming case for the UK to negotiate a new customs union with the European Union on our exit.

I would like to share a quote with the House. Forty years ago, almost to the day, a former Leader of the Opposition wrote this in a German newspaper:

“It is no small thing to have completed and preserved a customs union covering a market of nearly 300 million people.”

That was Mrs Thatcher, then the Leader of the Opposition. The current Leader of the Opposition takes the same view—that a customs union involving Britain and the European Union is a project worth preserving. However, bound by the whims of the misguided or the ideologues in her party, the Prime Minister is unable to serve the national interest and commit the Government to negotiate a customs union with the EU beyond the transition period. As the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) asked, what are the plans? There do not appear to be any at all.

We are calling for an outcome that will protect the UK economy—a “jobs first” Brexit in the context of the six tests set by the shadow Brexit Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). So, while the Prime Minister talked about leaving under no deal, we have tried to work with the manufacturing industry and other business sectors to examine how we might best protect the interests of both producers and consumers, as have other Members across the Chamber. The Prime Minister explicitly ruled out a customs union with the EU in her Mansion House speech in January, yet at the Press Gallery lunch today the Home Secretary apparently cast some doubt over that, but she has since tweeted to say that we are now back on track and that there will not be a customs union. It is the lack of continuity and the confusion that creates problems.

By direct contrast, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made it clear that Labour is committed to such an arrangement, saying that

“Labour would seek to negotiate a new comprehensive UK-EU customs union to ensure that there are no tariffs with Europe and to help avoid any need for a hard border in Northern Ireland.”

As on many other issues, a cursory glance at Labour’s position shows that that is the line that we have been taking for a considerable period. Whether we like it or not, the Prime Minister has caused confusion. As far as we are concerned, we are campaigning for a customs union, and we are determined to follow that. We are not in the business of keeping Britain in the EU through the backdoor, nor would we countenance a deal that left Britain as a passive recipient of rules decided by others elsewhere. However, many in the Chamber have acknowledged the huge risks and uncertainties that leaving the customs union presents for jobs, manufacturing, business supply chains and, importantly, continued peace in Northern Ireland. A comprehensive and effective UK-EU customs union is possible and would ensure that there are no tariffs with Europe and avoid the need for a hard border in Northern Ireland.

In entering a new customs arrangement with the EU, we would ensure that our hard-won workers’ rights, standards and protections are maintained and protected, blocking attempts by the more ardent Brexiteers to create a bonfire of such rights and the weakening of environmental protections. The new customs arrangement needs to ensure that Britain can have a say in future trade deals. A new customs union would ensure that the UK maintains close and progressive co-operation with the whole of Europe after Brexit, rather than creating the risk of growing isolation, which would see us further apart from our European neighbours on regulation, rights and standards. As has been identified today, even the Government’s leaked impact assessment, among other reports, shows that their highly streamed customs proposal will lead to non-tariff barriers and some tariffs, and it reaches the same conclusion as we have: a customs union is the only way to guarantee frictionless trade between the UK and the EU.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Dowd]

I would like to, but I do not have the time.

Clause 31 of the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, which gives the Government the power to enter into a customs union, was published in November 2017, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). However, within weeks, the PM was ruling out a customs union, but it remained in the Bill on First and Second Readings and in Committee. Has anyone bothered to mention that clause to the Prime Minister? Is she even aware of it? Should she not commit to clause 31?

Today’s debate will send a clear warning to this Government that they cannot simply steamroll over the wishes of Members. It is time for the Prime Minister to act like one and to challenge those in her party and her Cabinet who continue to hold the country and the negotiations hostage. The road ahead is clear, and Labour’s position has been consistent, as many have said today. It is time for the Government to listen to the consensus and adopt a position that seeks to negotiate a new UK-EU customs union. It is the only practical way to ensure frictionless trade and to protect jobs and the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland. As many Members have said, we owe that to our constituents and to our country.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Peter Dowd

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

I will not give way.

In addition to the funding crisis in the NHS, social care and the police, which my hon. Friend the shadow Policing Minister has highlighted so effectively, there is a developing and significant funding crisis in children’s services, which face a £2 billion funding gap by 2020. Last year, 72,000 children were taken into care, while the number of serious child protection cases has doubled in the past seven years, with 500 new cases initiated each day. There are stresses on other parts of children services, including, among others, child and adolescent mental health services, school transport, and education, health and care plans. All are inadequately funded, with the buck passed to professionals who are already hard pressed to manage and deliver services.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd]

I say to my hon. Friend that—to use an old phrase—he should not hold his breath.

The Government need to wake up and face the cold, hard reality that the Exchequer is losing billions every year and letting multinationals, which do not pay their fair share, off the hook because HMRC simply does not have the resources.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman is very clear and honest in his plans about wanting to spend a lot more money—half a trillion pounds in manifesto commitments—but at the same time the manifesto said that Labour would reduce the national debt. How is that possible?

[Peter Dowd]

I have the greatest respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I refer him to the answer I gave earlier. He should have a look at and dig into the documents, which are very easy to find.

The bottom line is that, wherever they are in the country, businesses that play by the rules are disadvantaged, so it is unfair not just to individual taxpayers but to business taxpayers. Meanwhile, back in Westminster, the Government continue to have absolute contempt for parliamentary oversight.