Future Government Spending

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Sheila Gilmore

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

Absolutely. In more than two hours, we have not heard anything, except in relation to gun licences and, of course, the recycled bankers’ bonuses.

What a contrast between the Opposition and the Labour party on the cusp of the election on 1 May 1997, when I was a candidate and lost by the not inconsiderable majority of 19,500 in Brent South. No wonder Labour MPs are depressed when they are sober and catatonic when drunk, quite frankly, because they know there is an acute contrast between that historic election and now. The Labour Government led by Tony Blair was ambitious, and their programme was thoughtful, forward looking, positive, generous and optimistic. Tony Blair is now persona non grata in the Labour party, and it now has a core vote strategy, with a mean-spirited, peevish, insular, dreary collection of bungs to special interest groups, and smears and caricatures aimed at the Conservative party.

What is more, Labour policy does not stand up to any form of scrutiny. We have heard about the utilities price freeze—a disastrous policy that has damaged the industry and, perversely, will damage the interests of consumers. Wither Labour’s cost of living crisis? Today, the IFS says that prices are being outstripped by wages for the first time since 2007. There is no more cost of living crisis because wages are growing at 2.1% against a retail prices index of 0.9%. On fuel, council tax, food, beer duty and children’s air passenger duty, the Government have made efforts to reduce the cost of living of ordinary families. We have driven up the personal allowance, and we are committed to drive it up to £12,500 in the next Parliament.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

No, I will not give way at present.

As we have already heard, the 45p tax rate has raised more income for public services than was ever done by the 50p rate, which was put in place for cynical political reasons. We will not take any lectures from the party that abolished the 10p tax rate for the poorest working families. What sticks in my craw is the moral superiority of the Labour party in this debate. In 2011, 1,200 people in my constituency had been parked on out-of-work benefits—incapacity benefit or invalidity benefit—for more than 10 years during a period of economic growth. Some 5.2 million were parked on out-of-work benefits when the economy was growing quarter by quarter during the 13 years of the Labour Government. We will not take any lectures or moral indignation from the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) and other Labour Members.

The top 1% of taxpayers are paying 25% of income taxes. We have driven up employment levels. More women than ever are working. Some 30.9 million people are working, despite the ludicrous prognostications of people such as David Blanchflower, who told us that 5 million people would be unemployed, and the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), who said that we could not cut expenditure and have growth in private sector jobs—complete and utter nonsense. In my constituency, unemployment has gone down by almost 60% and youth unemployment by almost 66%.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Sheila Gilmore

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

I do not think we all attend Christmas parties or cycle. [Interruption.] The more serious point, which I will elucidate further if the hon. Gentleman will generously allow me, is that there is demonstrable evidence that the institution of marriage has a positive net impact on society, cumulatively, particularly on children. There is nothing ignoble about using the tax system in a mature democracy to support behaviour that is good for society overall.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

Not at the moment. I know the hon. Lady is very keen, and I am sure she will try to get in later.

Given the scale of the public benefits associated with marriage, it is not at all surprising that most people in the developed world live in countries that recognise marriage, as I said earlier in an intervention. There are numerous examples of this benefit that I could highlight, but given the constraints on time I will mention just a few. Regardless of socio-economic status and education, cohabiting couples are between two and two and a half times more likely to break up than equivalent married couples. Women and children are significantly more vulnerable to violence and neglect in cohabiting, rather than married, families. Three quarters of family breakdown in families with children under five comes from the separation of non-married parents. Children are 60% more likely to have contact with separated fathers if the parents were married. Separated fathers are more likely to contribute to their child’s maintenance if the parents were married. Growing up with married parents is associated with better physical health in adulthood and increased longevity. Children from broken homes are nine times more likely to become young offenders, accounting for 70% of all young offenders.

[Mr Jackson]

I will not take issue with the hon. Lady’s intervention, because it is quite sensible. Nevertheless, the evidence-based data in support of marriage in the tax system have been accumulated over a very long period and are very clear. It is incumbent on the Government not to disregard that evidence, but to take account of it in formulating their fiscal policies.

The list goes on and the findings are put in context by the fact that the Relationships Foundation calculates that the costs of family breakdown amount to £44 billion per annum and that family breakdown outside marriage is the real driver. As the Centre for Social Justice has demonstrated, of every £7 spent as a result of the breakdown of young families, £1 is spent on divorce, £4 on unmarried dual-registered parents who separate, and £2 on sole-registered parents. That is why the Prime Minister was absolutely right to say in response to a question about how the policy could reduce the deficit:

“If we are going to get control of public spending in the long term in this country, we should target the causes of higher spending, one of which is family breakdown. We should do far more to recognise the importance of families, commitment and marriage”.—[Official Report, 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 429.]

I am aware of the arguments that the relationship between marriage and better policy outcomes is merely a coincidence and that the real driver for those better outcomes has nothing to do with marriage and is based on other considerations, especially income. Those arguments simply do not make sense. Apart from anything else, the fact that the millennium cohort study demonstrates that the poorest 20% of married couples are more stable than all but the richest 20% of cohabiting couples makes it plain that marriage is a significant, independent determinant of stability.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman consider the involvement of other variables? For example, those who are married are likely to be together for longer than those who are not and who split up, and the length of the relationship is likely to contribute to the stability of the children and their relationship with their parents.

[Mr Jackson]

I accept that, which is why I think it is unbecoming to focus on £3.85. We are not arguing that this is merely an issue of monetary transaction. It is about accepting that the inherent benefits of marriage are good for the individuals involved and, principally, their children, as well as for families, communities and society as a whole. We have the evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

I will give way later, because I am sure the hon. Lady will not forget my comments.

The purpose of clause 11 is not to try to make people get married, but to remove the obstacles to those who wish to marry, which is different. Marriage should at the absolute minimum be a credible, accessible option for all eligible couples. However, the failure of our income tax system—unlike that accessed by the majority of people living in Europe—to recognise marriage means that the fiscal obstacle to marriage is a real concern. The size of the couple penalty in this country, as outlined by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, is deeply worrying.

East Coast Main Line Franchise

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 20th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the east coast main line franchise.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us this debate. When I spoke to the Committee in support of the debate, I acknowledged that we had a 90-minute Westminster Hall debate on the subject on 5 June which was led by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), but on that occasion there was great demand to speak. Many Members were limited to interventions. More importantly, there were many issues which the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) did not address in his response. I intend to make that the focus of my speech today.

I declare a family interest in the railways. My grandfather was a railwayman and I am sure he would be delighted to see me here today speaking up for the railways. Of course, he was a railwayman in the pre-British Rail days, let alone the post-British Rail days. In fact—this will probably give away my age—he was working on the railways in the first world war in what was then a reserved occupation. He recalled being approached occasionally by people with white feathers because he was not fighting. He worked in the railways after the war when it became British Rail, and as a long-term railwayman he would have been proud to see British Rail and to see that the railways are still such an important element in our transport system. At various times in the past 50 or 60 years there have been suggestions that railways were the past and we would move beyond railways, but here in the 21st century it is true to say that railways are back as a hugely important part of our future, not just of our nostalgic past. It is therefore particularly important that we get it right for the next 50 years.

The other interest that I have to declare is as a frequent traveller on the east coast main line, spending nearly 10 hours a week travelling on that line when Parliament is sitting. Since I started that regular commute, I have been extremely impressed with the service provided by the current operator. That is not to say that it is perfect. I do not think any provider would have been able to tackle, for instance, the day that the line was completely flooded north of Newcastle, when I ended up having to spend the night in Newcastle. I do not believe that even a private operator could have held back the waves of water that fell on the Newcastle area that night, and I know that several Members present experienced that personally.

I was perplexed when, following the fiasco of the west coast main line refranchising, the Government’s new schedule of competitions prioritised getting East Coast out of the door by February 2015, three months before the next general election. Some cynics have suggested that what motivated that proposal and the timing of it was the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), our shadow spokesperson on transport, had been raising the issue and challenging the Government on the proposals, given what had happened with the west coast main line. The next thing we heard was that the Government were to refranchise East Coast within a very short time scale. That was to be done at the expense of giving extensions to two other long-distance operators—Virgin on the west coast and First on Great Western—because the investigation into the franchising fiasco suggested that not more than one main line franchise should be dealt with at one time. Even on that basis, though, why the east coast line and not one of the other lines? It makes no sense to reprivatise a successful public sector operator while neglecting the other services.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I am following the hon. Lady’s speech with great interest, but I always think it better to focus on cock-up in politics, rather than conspiracy. In that respect, would she like to explain why, on 21 January 2010, under a Labour Government, the Department for Transport consultation on franchising made a commitment from her party to reprivatise the east coast main line?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman made that intervention, because it enables me to say that one of the most important things for all of us in politics is to experience, to look at the evidence, to learn and to come to a view based on that evidence. No doubt he would be interested to read an article published in The Northern Echo today in which Lord Adonis is reported as saying that, on the basis of that experience, his view is that the line should not be refranchised. If we could not learn from our experience and change our politics, it would be a sad thing indeed. I hope that, having heard that people who previously held that view have changed their mind, the present Government will be prepared to follow suit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore]

Indeed. I am not saying, and I do not think any Opposition Member would say, that there is nothing that needs to be improved. Track and rolling stock can always be improved, and the current state of the track and overhead cables is a problem, but I would argue that it would be a problem for any operator. That is not what lies behind the Government’s proposal.

There is also the question of the premium payments. Again, I quote the Minister, this time at Transport questions on 25 April, when he said that

“the premium that the east coast main line pays to the Treasury is less than that paid by the west coast main line.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 995.]

In fact, a recent report from the Office of Rail Regulation suggests that, in 2011-12, the Government received £156 million in net franchise payments from the operator of the west coast main line and £177 million from East Coast—the opposite of what the Minister asserted.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The hon. Lady is making a typically eloquent speech, but does she not agree that it is apposite to mention, in the spirit of fairness and transparency, that the track access charges for National Express were significantly higher—£210 million, I understand, rather than the £92 million now charged to the operator?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I think the important thing to bear in mind is that the service is not failing in the ways the Minister said it was. If a Government propose a policy, it has to be based on the right evidence and not on an inaccurate interpretation of the situation.

Let me now talk about what East Coast does with its profits. In the previous debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough pointed out that whereas private operators are obliged to pay dividends, public operators can reinvest all their profits back into the service, which in East Coast’s case has amounted to more than £40 million since 2009. One of the criticisms that has been made in the past and might still be levelled now at a public operator is that, because the dead hand of bureaucracy lies on it, such an operator cannot be as efficient and as fleet of foot as a private sector operator, but it is true to say that East Coast is organisationally distinct from the Department for Transport. It is staffed by railway professionals and is therefore able to take the best of a private sector company in terms of efficiency, innovation and entrepreneurialism, but because it is in the public sector, any profits it makes are available to the Treasury and all of us as citizens of this country and taxpayers.

I am concerned that talking down East Coast to justify the proposed refranchising will damage morale at the company. That is most unfair, because staff and management have worked extremely hard and achieved good results, with 1 million extra passengers carried in 2012 compared with 2009 and record passenger satisfaction. I hope that, when he responds to the debate, the Minister will correct his remarks on punctuality and premium payments; acknowledge that East Coast reinvests all its profits and can emulate private sector efficiency; and congratulate staff and management on East Coast’s success. I think that that will be an important message to send back to the work force.

Given East Coast’s success, it makes no sense to prioritise its reprivatisation while other long-distance operators are being offered long extensions. Under the Government’s initial franchising timetable, the new west coast main line contract was due to start in October 2012. Under the new timetable, and as a result of prioritising East Coast, the current operator of the west coast main line, Virgin, will be offered a total of four and half years of extensions up to April 2017. Similarly, for the new Great Western contract, which was meant to start in April this year, the operator, First Group, is being offered three years of extensions up to July 2016.

Let us look again at another reason the Minister gave for prioritising the east coast main line over others. He said that the line

“connects industries in the north with commerce in the south, provides cross-border services to Scotland and helps to drive the development of tourism and the success of Edinburgh and Leeds as key financial centres outside London. That is why it is at the forefront of our new rail franchising programme”.—[Official Report, 5 June 2013; Vol. 563, c. 252WH.]

I accept all those things, although many of them can be said about other rail lines.

It is important for business that we have a good, strong railway service on the east coast main line. I am regularly accompanied on my weekly commute by an increasing number of business travellers, many of whom work in my city’s sizeable banking sector. Those people have often been attracted away from short-haul flights by East Coast’s excellent new first class offer, which in the long term could benefit our environment. Business travellers are also attracted by the new services that have been introduced, including a later evening service and an earlier morning service, which enable people who want, or have, to travel to London for business meetings to do so by rail in a way that was not possible before.

However, the west coast main line and the Great Western line are also important for business. The west coast main line connects five of the seven largest conurbations in Britain, and Great Western serves Bristol, Cardiff and the prosperous Thames valley, so the claim that the Government have decided to prioritise the east coast main line because of its importance to business does not really stack up—at least, it is not a reason for prioritising the east coast main line over the other services that were previously due for refranchising.

By deferring proper franchise competition on these other lines in favour of extensions, the damage done to business on those routes could well outweigh any benefit accrued by prioritising the reprivatisation of the east coast main line, because extending those franchises involves little or no competition. It is likely to cost franchises a lot while failing to deliver any improvements in service.

It also leaves the Government in a weak bargaining position with the franchise operators by offering them those franchises without competition. After all, one of the reasons the Government would no doubt give for wanting to franchise is to have competition that would drive innovation and improvement. However, as far as the other lines are concerned, it is more or less a case of giving the operators an extension.

The only bargaining chip that the Government appear to have is to call in East Coast’s parent company, Directly Operated Railways, presumably as some kind of threat to the franchise operator, so that if it does not settle for a reasonable sum the line might be given over to Directly Operated Railways. That seems rather odd, from a Government who are telling us that they do not want rail lines to be operated in that way.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment on the numerous observations and reports suggesting that, in fact, capital is available? Many businesses have capital available; the reason it is not being used to invest is that there is low demand in our economy.

[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Lady anticipates my next point. By any respectable indicators over the past few years, the cash reserves that British business has for investment are enormous. The issue is business confidence. To develop that point, parts of the economy are doing significantly better than others and have not been affected by this cyclical change, which has lasted since the onset of the Northern Rock crisis of 2007-08 and the wider banking crisis.

I am a Conservative, so of course I am in favour of tax cuts. Would that we were in a position to have a tax cut by virtue of the Opposition’s new clause 2, but let us make no bones about it: it is an unfunded tax cut—if it walks like a duck and swims like a duck, it is a duck. I always thought that Labour’s credo in recent times was not to support unfunded tax cuts. With all due respect to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), who is a very competent, proficient performer at the Dispatch Box, she failed to answer the points raised by me and the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) and say where the money would come from. We are talking about £100 billion of indicative funding, which has to be found from somewhere. It is all very well saying, “We’re going to have a progress report at the end of this Parliament to see how things are going,” but once we put in place that tax cut, we would cut off that income stream. We would then have to find other ways to fund core expenditure.

Charitable Registration

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Sheila Gilmore

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am not clear whether my hon. Friend is suggesting that this is inherent in the law, that we should take away the provision stating that there should not be any automatic presumption and that people should have to demonstrate public benefit. Mission creep is possible in any charitable organisation. There could be a suggestion that by defining oneself as a religion or any other kind of group, one does not have to demonstrate public benefit. What I am struggling with—after listening to what Members have said today and after being lobbied on the issue—is precisely how the Charity Commission came to its decision. Having said that, it is not for us to second-guess the tribunal. I was taken with the proposal made by the hon. Member for Congleton that in order to get the matter dealt with, perhaps it should be taken to the upper-tier tribunal as swiftly as possible, rather than meandering much more slowly through the process. It was held up by the Charity Commission while waiting for decisions in other cases.

The commission says that it does not see this a test case for all religions, and that it has not embarked on a process of trying to use this as a step towards something else, as people fear. I hope that that is correct. The 2006 Act stated that there was provision for a review of the Act’s workings, and in relation to the question of public benefit. That review has taken place and Lord Hodgson’s report, which was delivered to the Government some five months ago, was inconclusive. It said that there was no need for the definition of public benefit to be reviewed. Perhaps there is now an opportunity for a full debate on that review, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister says on the matter. I do not think that Parliament has had chance to debate that yet, so perhaps we could reopen why the question of why the review decided that the matter did not have to be reconsidered.

It is important that we have good, strong charity law and that the system ensures, as I think Members would agree, that what constitutes public benefit is clear. There are a number of opportunities to consider that, including in response to Lord Hodgson’s review, which is an issue that I hope the Minister will address.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The key issue is that the Charity Commission does not appear to have an evidential basis for saying that the Plymouth Brethren is sui generis—in other words, that it is unique and different from every other organisation doing something similar. That is why there is significant concern in that organisation, as well as worry among other people that they will be next.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Perhaps it will come out more fully in the appeal and in further work that is being done. I have some sympathy with those who say that many other religious organisations, at certain points in their operations, do not allow others to take part. On the face of it, the decision does not seem to quite fit with what people have said the organisation is doing.

Fuel Duty

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Sheila Gilmore

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Anyone who listened to “The Westminster Hour” last night—perhaps it is only sad political anoraks who do so—will know that Ministers and Government Whips have been at their Back Benchers over the weekend, and no doubt for some days before, feeding them the line that they should not worry because everything will be all right in the autumn statement and the fuel rise will not really happen, so there is no need for them to vote against the Government tonight. Clearly, the Government are terrified that there will be more votes against them. However, it is not fair to people in Britain to tell them, with a nod and a wink, “It should be all right.” Government Members have sought to criticise our motion, on the ground that we should find a way to pay for not going ahead with the increase, but what they are really saying—the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) gave this away completely—is, “This is not going to happen, but we will not tell you how we are going to pay for it.” Therefore, they cannot lecture us and accuse us of hypocrisy.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

On the issue of fiscal strategies and paying for things, does the hon. Lady really think that it is a compelling case to say that the catch-all concept of addressing tax avoidance is the way in which the Opposition will pay for any reductions that they make to duty? This afternoon, I sat on the Public Accounts Committee and listened to evidence from Google, Amazon and Starbucks, and it quickly became apparent to me that, over 13 years, the Labour Government allowed crony capitalism and did nothing about tax avoidance.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I think he has just walked into the Chamber to make it; I do not think he was present throughout the debate. I am glad that he and his Government want to act on these issues, and we look forward to seeing—perhaps in the autumn statement—the measures that they intend to put in place.

We heard from the Minister nothing about the fuel duty increase, but a lot of rehashed issues to do with the economy. There have been accusations that the Opposition are suffering from amnesia, but the amnesia that the Government are suffering from is even more profound; they seem to have forgotten that when, two and a half years ago, they came into office, they had an emergency Budget, which, we were told, would sort out the economy. If Ministers recall, at the time of that Budget and in the autumn statement of 2010, we were told that the economy would grow over the next two years, and that they would reduce, and indeed eliminate, the deficit in their term in government. They have since had to concede that there has not been that growth, and that they will not eliminate the deficit over that period, so if anyone has amnesia, it is the Government. That happened because of the absolute insistence on trying to cut the deficit so quickly, including by making cuts in investment spending; that has produced a lot of the problems that we have.

Even some of the Government’s supporters, including David Smith, who writes on economics in The Sunday Times, said recently that it was a huge mistake for the Government to cut investment in their first year—in their emergency Budget—and in their next Budget. They have tried, in some small way, to say that they will reinstate investment, but the damage has been done. Investment that could have been made in affordable housing and school building was cut—for ideological reasons, I would contend. As a result, there has been no growth for most of the period, and people have suffered from very high prices, in many respects, at a time when many people are on short time, and are not earning what they did.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Sheila Gilmore

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

We appear to have lost coterminosity entirely in Scotland, and that is an issue because the situation there is making it extremely difficult for people to have more engagement in politics and a better relationship with their elected representatives. When I tell people, “I am your Westminster MP, but this person will be the candidate for that part of the constituency, although not in your sister’s area, which is not that far away,” it is difficult to make them understand. We also have local government boundaries, which are completely different again.

I am not necessarily saying that we have to change the situation in Scotland immediately; we are learning to live with our different boundaries. However, there is absolutely no need to walk into the situation that I have described. A simple change, backed up by the evidence, to a four-year fixed term, would cure the problem. I hope that the Government will at least consider the issue again—and quickly, so we can get it out of the way.

Obviously, there are other issues. I am not qualified to comment on the detail of some of them, but they are important and we need to spend time on them during the passage of the Bill. I hope that at last the Government have heard the question.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I fear that the hon. Lady is perhaps underestimating the sophistication and intelligence of her constituents and those in the rest of Scotland. The evidence seems to suggest that when elections have coincided—for instance, the local elections on 6 May this year and the county council elections previously that coincided with general elections—people have been discerning and have made separate decisions. I would vouchsafe that that was the case in Scotland.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am not suggesting that people cannot make separate decisions, but there are practical difficulties. However, over and above those difficulties—which we saw clearly in 2007 and because of which we have taken a step to move elections apart—the overwhelming objection is that we would be in danger of drowning or swamping the important issues of the different legislatures. That is important for what we have built up under devolution. I may now be an elected representative in this place, but those of us who fought hard for devolution did not do so to see everything disappearing in the way that it would in such elections. That is why we should simply amend the Bill to have four-year terms. Then I would be much more supportive of it than I am in its present form.