HMRC Estate Transformation

Debate between Mel Stride and Lisa Cameron

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that HMRC engages with apprenticeship programmes and is supportive of apprentices, as are the rest of the Government.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

East Kilbride’s Centre 1 is so named because it was deemed No. 1 for taxation skills and experience, but the Public and Commercial Services Union reports that these plans lose the UK 17,000 years of tax experience. Everyone in EK knows someone who has worked in Centre 1 and utterly condemns this Government’s plans. Given that the Minister’s Department has been working constructively with me on the all-party parliamentary group on new towns to regenerate them, why is he devastating East Kilbride and new towns by closing our largest employer?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to be as passionate as she is about protecting the existing workforce and making sure that we do not lose the workforce’s vital skills. That is why we have taken this approach. We are ensuring that the new locations are viable for those from the old. For example, we are assisting those who need to travel by meeting some of their travel costs over three to five years. We very much want to keep the high level of skills in the organisation.

Pubs: Business Rates

Debate between Mel Stride and Lisa Cameron

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mel Stride]

As I said, 63% of pubs and bars in my hon. Friend’s constituency—typically those with lower rateable values, which probably correlates to the kind of pub she describes—will benefit from the one-third reduction that we announced in the Budget. That reduction will be worth about £900 million to the sector over the next two years. She also rightly referred to what we have done in freezing beer duty and spirit duty. In 2013 we withdrew the beer duty escalator, so the price of a pint is now some 14p less than it would have been otherwise, and we froze beer duty yet again in the last Budget. Across the country, around half of the income of pubs is driven by beer sales alone, so those are important measures. The further reliefs that we have been introducing come on the back of a great deal of activity, particularly since 2016. We have introduced a total of about £13 billion-worth of reliefs across the business rates terrain. That includes making 100% small business rates relief permanent, and doubling the threshold for small business rates relief in 2017.

My hon. Friend asked what we are doing for all the pubs in her constituency. That is a valid point. We have changed the uprating from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index. We initially announced that that would come in from 2020, but in the recent Budget it was brought forward by two years. That will lower the level of business rates right across the pub sector, irrespective of the size of the particular establishment. That is worth about £5 billion in additional relief over the next five years. We have doubled the level of rural rate relief to 100% from 2017.

My hon. Friend referred to specific examples of where there have been very large increases in rateable value—I think she quoted a figure in excess of 60% in one case. In 2017, at the time of the revaluation, we introduced the transitional relief scheme, which was worth some £3.6 billion of relief, to ensure that we smoothed out some of those increases. I would be happy to meet her at some point to look in detail at one or two of the examples she raised, which might be useful for us both. An increase in one year of more than 60%, given the transitional relief that would be available, would be on the high side, but I would be very interested to look at that with her in detail.

[Dr Cameron]

I thank the Minister for all the work that he is doing for the sector, which needs as much support as possible. Does he agree that it cannot be right that the rateable value of our Glassford Inn, for instance, is so high that even if it sold beer every night of the week to every single person in the village, it still could not pay the rates that have been set? Will he agree to look at that issue for me?

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Of course, I am not familiar with that particular establishment—although I would probably like to be—or with its current trading conditions. My point is that a pub, or any business for that matter, will be under pressure for a variety of reasons—my hon. Friend the Member for Henley raised, for example, the change in drinking habits as one factor. Importantly, the Government have a responsibility on the tax front to ensure that we ease those pressures to the greatest extent that we can, while taking a balanced and responsible approach to the economy.

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

Debate between Mel Stride and Lisa Cameron

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

This deal protects the economy over and above the other options and possible outcomes, which is what this House wanted us to assess. We have done that, and this deal is clearly the best option on the table economically. It also delivers on the other elements, including the non-economic ones, that are important to people up and down the country, including intra-EU migration.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is clear that Brexit makes people poorer. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for disability, I have been inundated by correspondence from concerned people with disabilities up and down the country. What will the impact be for people with disabilities? Will an equalities impact assessment be undertaken? Given that many of those people are already living on a shoestring and could become poorer, what safeguards will the Government put in place?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady asks specifically about those with disabilities. This Government have an outstanding record in that respect. We spend £50 billion—[Interruption.] We spend £50 billion on those with disabilities and long-term health conditions. The critical point here is that the only reason we can provide that support is because of our effective, responsible stewardship of the economy. The responsible thing to do for the economy now, in order to protect just the constituents to whom she refers, is to ensure that this deal prevails, that we get economic certainty behind us and that we see the economy safeguarded, improving and growing into the future.

HMRC Closures

Debate between Mel Stride and Lisa Cameron

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mel Stride]

The criteria are there to allow a balanced judgment across the eight criteria as to where the best place is for the regional hubs. That is exactly the approach that HMRC has taken. I fully appreciate that there are Members here who are very unhappy with the fact that there may be some closures in their constituency, but that does not necessarily mean that the criteria are being inappropriately exercised.

[Dr Cameron]

The Minister’s colleagues in Departments such as the Department for International Development feel that East Kilbride in my constituency is an excellent place to have a hub and digital and new services, and has a great talent pool. How does this make sense, because there is surely a contradiction? We do not fit the eight criteria, but for other Departments reaching out and doing excellent work in East Kilbride in the modern age, we meet all the criteria. It simply does not make sense. Why is it more fitting to be in Glasgow than in East Kilbride?

[Mel Stride]

As the hon. Lady knows, a transition office will be kept in East Kilbride; it would certainly not have been there had many of the strengths to which she alluded not been present in the local community. On balance, it has been decided that it is better to go to Glasgow with a hub than to have a similar arrangement in her constituency, but that is not to suggest that there is not a great talent pool in her constituency. It simply means that on balance, under the eight criteria that we reviewed, the best solution we have come to is Glasgow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

I shall give the hon. Gentleman the same answer I gave to the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams); I am certainly happy to look into it—although I have now had some divine inspiration, and I believe that the criterion is an hour’s travel time. St Matthew has come to my aid.

Let us not lose sight of the bigger picture. As I have said, the programme is underpinned by the aim of making HMRC a more efficient and effective tax authority. I want to dwell briefly on our record in that area, because what we are doing is part of a broader drive to transform HMRC that has been going on for some years. Its performance has been improving considerably. I have already mentioned that the tax gap is the lowest in our history; it is also one of the lowest tax gaps in the world.

The hon. Member for Bootle bemoaned the Mapeley PFI deal. As I said, it was a Labour Government who put us into that deal, but he is right that there will be considerable savings from not having to continue with the deal, as a consequence of pursuing the current programme.

HMRC has improved customer service. Almost all its business customers now choose to deal with it online, and more than eight out of 10 self-assessment returns come in digitally.

[Dr Cameron]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being generous in that regard, at least. Are the cost savings on the Mapeley deal based on current expenditure on that deal or on renegotiation with the organisation?

[Mel Stride]

The cost savings are for an investment of £552 million over 10 years. Firstly, they arise through the avoidance of future costs that would be incurred in the event of our not going ahead with the programme. Those would be the costs of the PFI deal, were we to continue with it. That cost is £75 million per annum—obviously from 2021, when the contract for strategic transfer of the estate to the private sector comes to an end. There is a cost saving of £300 million in the 10 years to 2025. That gives an annual cash saving, as compared with 2016-17, of £74 million in 2025-26, rising to about £90 million in 2026-27.[Official Report, 27 November 2017, Vol. 632, c. 2MC.]