UK Economy: Capital Gains Tax

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

As set out in our manifesto, we are committed to not increasing taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase national insurance, basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, or VAT. I know the noble Lord would not expect me to comment on speculation about other specific taxes.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that uncertainty has grown in recent years as a result of us having two Budgets every year, in effect. Will he give an assurance that in future we will have only one Budget a year?

Budget Statement

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. I do not want to follow him down the road he has just been driving along, although that is the first sensible analysis of what should happen that I have heard in this debate or, indeed, anywhere else. Clearly, something needs to be done about national insurance contributions. There are anomalies all over the place and I hope that with the report that is coming we will get a rather more sensible decision than has been taken on this occasion.

There is certainly a need for reform but the major mistake that has been made by the Government—and on these Benches we should understand it very well—is the absurd manifesto commitment that was made by the Conservative Party at the last election not to increase income tax, VAT or national insurance contributions. I say it is absurd because what serious party of government, coming into office for five years, would suggest that it is not going to change any of those taxes during the next five years, when it does not know what is going to happen and what the circumstances are going to be? The Government deserve every little bit of criticism that they are getting for the change that has been made.

I want to comment on two things: first, on the shape of the Budget and the economic forecasts that have been published; and, secondly, on the impact of Brexit on the Budget, which the Chancellor did not even mention and which, as many noble Lords have pointed out, is going to have an enormous impact on the economy in the year ahead and, indeed, in the five years ahead and beyond. The rather higher than expected growth rate, which has been a theme of a number of speeches today, has been driven by consumer spending. It rose by 3.2% in the fourth quarter—the fastest since 2007. Meanwhile, it was accompanied by a sharp fall in savings. The rate fell into negative territory, as has been pointed out in the debate, for the first time since 2008. It is an extremely worrying position where a large part of the consumer spending has clearly been taken by people out of their savings.

All this has been driven by low inflation and low interest rates but we have higher inflation and lower real wages coming down the track. As Paul Johnson from the IFS has noted, and has been referred to in the debate, in the forecasts, average earnings are no higher in 2022 than in 2007. He could not find an adjective to describe what an appalling situation that is. All this is against a background of low productivity, with business investment down 1% in the fourth quarter and 1.5% in the year as a whole. It is a very dangerous situation when the economy is driven by consumer spending in this way at the same time as investment is falling. We are on an extremely dangerous trajectory and the only way to overcome the debt problem—I am with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on this—is to increase productivity and growth. Any sensible business with the income to justify the borrowing will borrow and invest to increase its productivity and profitability and get itself out of trouble.

I note that the Government have £26 billion of unexpected undershoot in their borrowings. The Chancellor said that he was putting this into a “Brexit reserve”. The cynic in me says that it is more likely to be a general election reserve. I can see what is going to happen to the extra £26 billion when we get to the year before the next election: there will be a very good reason for using it, if not for Brexit expenditure then for bribes as the general election approaches. It should instead be added to the investment in productivity that has been announced elsewhere in the Budget.

There was no mention at all of Brexit in the Budget, which is a very serious omission. There will be some very high direct costs and dangers to revenue arising from our leaving the EU—for example, new administrative burdens in agriculture, fisheries, immigration, border control and customs.

I want to say something about customs before I finish. Before I came to the House I was chairman of the biggest trust port in this country, the Port of Tyne, so I follow the port industry with some interest. I was interested to hear from the chief executive of Dover—the Port of Tyne is bigger than Dover—that one lorry comes through the Port of Dover every minute. Some 31% of our imports and exports pass through the Strait of Dover—£220 billion of goods. One lorry per minute: that is an enormous amount—160 kilometres of lorries coming over every day. If they were parked they would stretch along the motorways from Dover to Stansted. That is how many lorries come in through that port. It takes one minute to get each lorry through the port. If that increases by two, or three, minutes, there are massive logjams on our roads.

A lot of the goods coming in are food and perishable items. At present the system can just about cope. Consider, however, the warning from Christopher Booker in last Sunday’s Telegraph. I have chosen Christopher Booker because he has been the scourge of the EU for quite a few years—incredibly anti-EU. However, he says in last Sunday’s article,

“our trade with the outside world has been governed by CHIEF (Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight), designed to handle 50 million customs items a year”.

In 2010, HMRC realised that it would need to be revised and it has spent all that time putting a new system in place. Time does not permit me to go through the full details, but the system will have to be revised again. It has taken HMRC all those years to put a new system in place. It does not yet know, and will not know until the negotiations are complete, what the system will comprise and it will be faced with the most horrible crisis at the end of this period if we come out with a hard Brexit or not knowing the details. If ports such as Dover—and many other organisations—cannot prepare for the onslaught that will face them as a result of Brexit it will cost the Government and the taxpayer a lot of money, and I would like the Minister to tell the House what preparations are being made for those eventualities.

Surplus Target: Corporation Tax

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, forecasts are forecasts and I have spent a considerable part of my life having that dubious challenge. We are dealing with an outcome as opposed to a forecast. From what I remember of the specifics, I do not remember a statement that interest rates “will” rise, I thought it was more that they “could” rise. Importantly, while the Chancellor has responded with the appropriate flexibility for the new circumstances we may find ourselves in, based on what the OBR comes up with in its new forecasts for the Autumn Statement, it may well be that there are still difficult choices to be made.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, is it not clear that the Government are not going to meet their borrowing targets? The Chancellor has said that. Is it not ludicrous against that background to be announcing today that there is going to be a cut in corporation tax costing £4 billion to the Exchequer? Can the Minister tell us what the position is going to be in the autumn? We will have a new Prime Minister, a new Chancellor of the Exchequer and a new OBR forecast. Can he guarantee that this announcement today will ever be carried out?

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, I could give a very brief answer and say, “No, I can’t tell you what is going to happen in the autumn”. It is pretty hard these days to tell people what is going to happen next week.

Income Per Capita

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, I am still learning the practices here, and I am extremely tempted to give a very long answer to that very detailed question. I shall find the appropriate moment do so. Suffice it to say, at the risk of repeating myself, that I think I am right in saying that the very specific attention this document gives to all the factors that are important for productivity has never before been given, including virtually every single topic that the noble Lord mentioned.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister has done so much work on this subject, can he tell the House which he thinks comes first: higher pay or higher productivity?

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, there is considerable debate in leading academic circles about causation, as I am sure many Members of this House are aware. Historically the conventional belief has been that higher productivity will lead to higher wages. Due to the length of time during which this country and many others have shown signs of weak productivity and wages there is growing evidence, which has obviously influenced the choice of policy, that deliberately trying to raise wages for the less well off may result in a boost to productivity, as the ONS estimated in its independent analysis of this measure when it was announced last week.

Autumn Statement

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House that this is a time-limited debate and when the clock shows 5, time is up. Thank you.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, this is a welcome, if short debate. We are very much looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rose, with his extensive business experience, and to his comments on the Statement published yesterday.

My noble friend, in opening the debate, outlined the many positive aspects of the Autumn Statement, and did so quite extensively. I do not want to follow him, but from these Benches I very much want to welcome the £150 million that has been promised to mental health expenditure, which we have championed, particularly in recent times. I also welcome the £100 increase in personal allowances for low and middle earners. This has had a major impact on low earners in this country in the programme of increases in personal allowances that have been made. This further increase will help those on low pay.

I also welcome from these Benches the removal of national insurance for apprentices under 25. That will undoubtedly encourage many firms to take on more apprenticeships, and that massive expansion and improvement in quality will, I hope, continue. I welcome the infrastructure spending and the roads programme, as capital expenditure is vital to the long-term productivity improvement and long-term benefits of the economy.

I also mention the postgraduate loans that have been introduced. This has been a gaping hole in the provision of funds for students, and those loans will make an enormous impact, just as the other loans have, on student numbers in our universities. The final thing that I would mention, which my noble friend touched on, is the whole industrial strategy being pursued by BIS. It has had an enormous impact and is very much welcomed, particular by manufacturing industry, and is helping to rebalance the economy in the way that everybody in this House wants to see.

When it comes to the balance of the Autumn Statement, I have some anxieties. I did not see whether the Chancellor or the Chief Secretary had their fingers crossed yesterday, but in many ways it is a fingers-crossed Autumn Statement. It is tremendously important that confidence is sustained, not only in the bond markets of the world but in the many businesses and institutions throughout the world that will be investing in this and other economies. I hope that the Autumn Statement will help to sustain that confidence in a way that will keep investment going. Those of us who have been involved in business know just how important confidence is in deciding to invest millions or billions of pounds in projects. Confidence is vital and I hope that the Statement will keep confidence high.

There is no doubt that the economy is growing at an incredible rate. To put on 2 million extra jobs—more than the whole of Europe combined—is tremendously consoling to somebody like me from the north-east, where we still have the highest levels of unemployment in the United Kingdom. It is an incredible achievement by the Government, and it is that growth in the economy that is sustaining the confidence to which I have just referred. However, the forecast cuts in expenditure that have to come in the next Parliament are enormous, and I am not sure that people outside this House, or even in the House, have fully understood the scale of the proposed cuts, which we need to think about very hard.

Under the proposals, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will have had a 65% cut in spending. It is proposed that the Home Office should have a 46.5% cut in spending, and that BIS will have a cut of 30%. If those departments are going to face cuts on that scale, it will cause major difficulties for their own services and for the services they provide. Inevitably it raises a question about the ring-fencing of all departments, particularly the National Health Service, if the cuts are to be sustained.

The only hope, of course, is that growth really takes off not only in the economy generally but in the tax revenues that are coming in. That will enable future Chancellors not to have to make cuts on the scale that is being suggested. We need to be very cautious about whether we can sustain either ring-fencing or should make cuts on that scale. Anyone who thinks about this will see that they are probably impossible to achieve. That is why I described the Autumn Statement as a fingers-crossed one. If we get the increased revenue, we will not need to bring in some of the cuts that are causing such great disfavour.

Income Tax

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I remind the noble Lord, and the House, that growth in the UK is the highest among the G7 countries; that unemployment has fallen by 324,000 in the past year; and that the other piece of news today, which he omitted to mention, is that the gender pay gap has fallen to an all-time low.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

Does my noble friend not agree that the most important point is that 3 million people at the bottom of the earnings pile, including 1.8 million women, have been taken out of income tax completely? At the same time, the Revenue’s take has increased by some £5.1 billion over the past year. Is that not a classic example of a stronger economy and a fairer society?

[Lord Newby]

It is, my Lords.

Income Tax: Top Rate

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, it is a very considerable sum of money, but we are taking steps across a range of areas to tackle evasion and avoidance, whether by individuals or firms. There is a measure in this year’s Budget specifically designed to get tax upfront from individuals who are engaged in schemes that might subsequently be found to be avoiding tax. That will generate a considerable amount of income. A number of other measures that we have taken are bringing in hundreds of millions of pounds from people who previously were able to avoid taxes.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

Does my noble friend not agree that if we want a fairer tax system, it also means that we need to ensure that the broadest backs bear the greatest burdens when we are facing difficulties?

[Lord Newby]

Yes, my Lords, and that is why the Government have taken a raft of measures which will ensure that those with the broadest backs pay very much more than the additional amount of income tax that they might have paid had the rate remained at 50%. For example, we have increased higher rate capital gains tax, raised the stamp duty on higher value homes and reduced the cost of pensions tax relief. These measures, taken with other measures, mean that the additional amount being paid by high earners was more than £1 billion last year and will be more than £2 billion this year and more than £4 billion next year. This is real cash coming into the Exchequer as a result of measures we have taken to hit those who otherwise were avoiding tax.

Industrial Strategy: British Business Bank

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, I join in congratulating my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft in introducing this short debate, which provides us with a very useful opportunity to discuss industrial strategy and the role of the British Business Bank and banking more generally. The comments from my noble friend Lord Stoneham set out very clearly, when linked with what my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft said about industrial strategy, exactly what the Government are seeking to achieve. I am somewhat surprised by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, because I think that BIS and the Secretary of State have set out a very clear industrial strategy.

We have a lot of history in this. If you go back to Tony Benn, you have the extreme of wanting to nationalise the 40 top companies in the country. You then go through the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation and the National Economic Development Council, picking winners. That is another strategy. I think that the Government have got it absolutely right, as the noble Baroness said. They are facilitating the success of the banking sector and the other sectors and activities pointed out by my noble friend Lord Stoneham.

I wanted to intervene in this debate because I have had experience in two banks. One of them was a state bank, established by Tony Benn when he was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, called the National Girobank. I worked in the City for that bank for a number of years. The intention was to give everybody in the country a bank account, so that everybody could transfer money from one account to another by the new electronic means that was just becoming available. It all sounded absolutely wonderful; but of course it paid no attention to what was going on in the market. The bank ended up being privatised and sold off to the Alliance Building Society. It is still doing a useful little job there, but nothing like the major ambitions of Tony Benn in that time.

Because of my experience I want to bring some reservations to this debate about government policy at the moment—although I heartily endorse all that the Government are seeking to achieve. There is a great risk that expectations are raised too high about what can be achieved in creating competition in the banking sector. I was delighted to read—as the noble Lord also pointed out—in the Financial Times today that there is potential for another 30 banks. I hope that there are going to be 30 new banks; but I shall believe it when I see it. It also reported that five new banks had been given a certificate. I tried to start a bank in the north-east some years ago and know what it was like to try to get a licence to operate. There are five new banks—two of them Nigerian, two of them Indian and one British. The British one, Paragon, began life financing buy-to-let flats and houses in the boom before 2007-08.

We are therefore a long way from seeing the competition appearing that I think everybody would like to see. We hear a lot about challenger banks appearing on the scene. Nobody can disagree with it, but the greatest force in banking, from my experience, is inertia. People do not change their bank accounts. We need more competition in order to encourage them to do so; but to get carried away and think that in the term of one Government we can completely change the structure of the banking system in the country is pie in the sky. This is a very good start. It is very well worth doing and should be supported, but it is important that we do not get carried away and think that it can achieve everything in five minutes.

Similarly, on the regulatory side, there is a great danger that people think more can be achieved than actually can be achieved. In a previous incarnation I went to the United States to look at banking regulation there, which has always been rather more rigorous than it is here. I visited the comptroller of the currency; I remember meeting Paul Volcker; I met the chairmen of the Senate committee on banking and the House Committee on Financial Services, and a whole host of other people. The one message I got from it was that, no matter how much regulation we introduce, we will still get problems in the banking sector. I am slightly concerned that while we are spending our time discussing deregulation Bills and everybody is calling for deregulation in every other sector, if we are not very careful, in the stampede to regulate our banks we are going to kill the goose that has laid the golden egg in recent years.

That is not to say that things have not to be done; but there are over a million paragraphs of regulation in the FSA rulebook. When the Bank of England was given statutory responsibility over bank supervision in 1979, fewer than 80 people were engaged in the supervision of financial firms. Since then the number of UK financial supervisors has increased to around 1,200. In 1980 there was one UK regulator for every 11,000 people employed in the UK financial sector. By 2011, there was one regulator for every 300 people employed in finance. Those numbers do not even include compliance people in the private sector, the number of which has exploded since the crisis.

In 1974 returns could have around 150 entries. Today, UK banks are required to fill in more than 7,500 separate cells of data—a fiftyfold increase. Forthcoming legislation could see that rise to between 30,000 to 50,000 data cells spread across 60 different regulatory forms. We are in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. While we are rightly concerned to control the banking sector, we need to realise that there is a limit to what should be done and what can be done.

The British Business Bank is getting off to a really good start. As my noble friend said, it is not really a bank; if anything, it is a wholesale bank. It is supporting or partnering other institutions. I think that that is the right way ahead; as a result, it is getting quickly to a very substantial number of small firms. The truth is that 80% of the lending to firms in this country is coming from the big institutions. Clearly, that is not a desirable situation so we want to see this institution succeeding.

I am slightly concerned, in reading the bank’s documents, that it says that:

“Unlike most banks, our impact is not measured in terms of profits generated but rather by the benefit of increased economic activity it creates”.

That is all very fine. I hope that the bank achieves the rates of return to which my noble friend referred because I do not want to see this institution crowding out other banks and other financial institutions seeking to operate on proper rates of return. Therefore the rates of return that it achieves are terribly important. I am pleased to see the objectives in there and the monitoring of them that the institution is proposing.

The British Business Bank deserves support. It is targeted in the right way through a whole host of institutions and it clearly has made a very good start in helping firms in the small and medium-sized enterprise sector which so clearly need the support that the bank is giving.

Economy: Interest Rates

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I did not actually say that. As the noble Lord is aware, the level of inflation at the moment is at a low of 1.5%. The Governor of the Bank of England has made it clear, through the work in reviewing forward guidance, that interest rates will rise when the Bank believes that excess capacity in the economy is being used up and where the forward outlook is for higher inflation over a two-year period, which is the remit of the MPC. The Bank has made it very clear, though, that any increase in interest rates, whenever it takes place, will be gradual, and that any new equilibrium rate of interest that is reached is likely to be significantly less than the 5% that obtained before the financial crash.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

Does my noble friend not agree that it is useful to set the current rate of interest in context? For instance, if one looks at the period during which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the median rate was something like 10%, and rose to even 15%. Is it not quite an achievement to retain a level of interest rates below 3%, and should we make sure that people do not fear a rise, exaggerate it and damage economic growth?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that is an important point. As I said in answer to the earlier question, any increase in interest rates is likely to be gradual and to reach a new equilibrium that is lower than it was in the past. It is worth saying that mortgage payments are at a historically low level in terms of proportion of income, and that rates would have to rise by 4% to get to the 2007 proportion of income. Nobody, I think, whether it is the Bank of England or independent experts, has suggested that interest rates are likely to rise by that much in the foreseeable future.

Banks: Payment Protection Insurance

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that the FCA is taking this matter seriously and I am sure that someone would be happy to meet him to discuss this in more detail. The FCA is already looking at this general area as part of the thematic review it is currently undertaking into PPI complaint handling.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the breathtaking scale of the PPI scandal is matched only by the volume of telephone calls that have been received by many people throughout the country, offering to help, and taking a slice of the proceeds that are then obtained? Will the Government look into this to see whether another scandal is not under way?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think that all Members of your Lordships’ House will have had such telephone calls. I can reassure the noble Lord that the Government have acted in this area. During last year’s passage of the banking reform Act, we gave the claims management regulator the power to impose penalties on claims management companies which make speculative claims. We are also giving the regulator more enforcement staff and requiring claims management companies to pay for this extra effort.