National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 30th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

The context in which the autumn statement was made was 13 years of Conservative economic failure. There have been 25 tax rises in this Parliament alone and the tax burden is set to rise to its highest since the second world war. That is the context that the British people are facing, and that is the context in which the autumn statement was made.

The impact on people across Britain is brutal. As a result of the Conservatives’ decisions on personal taxation, households will be left facing an average tax rise of £1,200 from the Government. Looking across all taxes, we know that, by the end of the decade, taxes in the UK will have risen by the astonishing equivalent of £4,300 for every household in the country. That is the context in which we are debating the Bill’s Second Reading.

Let me make it clear for the benefit of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that Labour welcomes the cut in national insurance that the Bill includes. We believe that taxes on working people are too high, and we have long said that we want to see them come down when they can be cut in an economically and fiscally responsible way. We will support the Bill, but we believe that the Government need to be honest with people. The Conservatives need to be honest and admit that they are responsible for the biggest hit to living standards on record, and that this has been the biggest tax-raising Parliament that our country has ever seen.

This is not the first time we have debated national insurance rates in this Parliament. Just over two years ago, I stood here, opposite the Financial Secretary’s predecessor —more accurately, his predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor—to debate Second Reading of the Health and Social Care Levy Bill. That Bill introduced, in 2022-23, a 1.25 percentage point increase in national insurance contributions for employees and employers—an increase that we rightly described at the time as

“a new tax on working people and their jobs.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 845.]

Hon. Members may recall that when the Government published that legislation, their own tax information and impact note on that tax rise confirmed:

“There may be an impact on family formation, stability or breakdown as individuals, who are currently just about managing financially, will see their disposable income reduce.”

We opposed that legislation, and it was clear to a wide coalition, including the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI and the TUC, that it was the worst possible tax rise at the worst possible time.

As time went on, the then Chancellor—now the Prime Minister—realised that he had made a mistake. He tried to make a partial U-turn in last year’s spring statement by increasing national insurance thresholds, yet the Institute for Fiscal Studies quickly pointed out that that move would not undo damage already done. Its director, Paul Johnson, confirmed:

“Almost all workers will be paying more tax on their earnings in 2025 than they would have been paying without this parliament’s reforms to income tax and national insurance contributions, despite the tax-cutting measures announced today.”

Later last year, the 1.25 percentage point national insurance rise was finally reversed, yet, as we know only too well, any benefits that many families may have hoped to gain from that U-turn were rapidly eclipsed by the Tory mortgage penalty, following the Conservatives’ catastrophic mishandling of the economy. The impact of that recklessness is still with us today, as mortgage holders across the country face a hit of £220 a month when their current deals end.

The truth is that whatever the Conservatives do, they keep making working people worse off. That has been true over the 13 years that they have been in power, it has been true over the past two years of changes to national insurance, and it will be true after the Bill becomes law.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has been trying desperately to paint today’s national insurance cuts as the answer to the cost of living crisis. Last week, she claimed that

“taxes for the average worker have gone down by £1,000”.—[Official Report, 22 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 360.]

I believe she repeated that claim today, yet analysis by the House of Commons Library makes it clear that national insurance and income tax on the median earner will rise from £6,112 in 2010-11 to £7,364 in 2024-25. Will she confirm—or will the Financial Secretary confirm on her behalf—whether she stands by her earlier remarks and explain exactly how those figures were calculated? The experience of people across Britain is very different from the picture that she is trying to paint.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Perhaps the answer to the question of the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury is that the income tax starting point has doubled from around £6,000 to more than £12,000. That provides the extra £1,000 take-home pay every year that he is puzzled about.

[James Murray]

The hon. Gentleman promoted me inadvertently, as I am the shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, but I thank him for his vote of confidence. Our point is that today’s tax cut, which we support, must be seen in the context of 13 years of the Conservatives in power: 13 years of economic failure, with 25 tax rises in this Parliament alone and the tax burden on course to be the highest since the second world war. Whatever the Chief Secretary to the Treasury might say, people across Britain are experiencing life very differently from how she paints it.

However welcome the measures in the Bill may be, they come after 25 tax rises in this Parliament alone. The British people will not be fooled. No matter what statistics the Government contrive or the gloss they try to put on their record, people across Britain need ask themselves just one question: do they and their families feel better off now than they did 13 years ago? The answer is a resounding no. At last week’s autumn statement, we learned not only that the tax burden is still on track to be the highest since the war and that inflation has been revised upward across the entire forecast period, but that growth rates have been cut for next year, the year after, and the year after that.

It took some gall for the Chancellor to say that he was delivering an “autumn statement for growth”—comments repeated today by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—since the Office for Budget Responsibility reports that next year’s growth rate has been cut by more than half. Low growth has dogged our country for the past 13 years. The autumn statement makes it clear that the Conservatives still have no plan to get our economy growing as it should. Since 2010, under the Conservatives, GDP growth has been stuck at an average of 1.5% a year, down from 2% in the Labour years before. If the economy had continued to grow for the past 13 years at the rate it grew under Labour, it would be £150 billion larger—the equivalent of £5,000 per household every year.

As we all know, because of that low growth, the Conservatives have had to keep putting up taxes on working people. Low growth and high taxes have made people across Britain worse off. That is the reality of the past 13 years of the Conservatives in power. The Bill’s tax cuts cannot even remotely compensate for the damage they have done to our economy and the living standards of people across Britain.

Although we support today’s tax cut, we know that our country needs economic growth to make working people better off and to get our public services off the floor. That is the plan from Labour. We are the party of fiscal responsibility and of business, with a plan to make working people better off. Come the next election—it cannot come soon enough—people across Britain will look at the Conservatives’ record and the bleak achievements they will claim. In this Parliament, real disposable household incomes will have fallen the furthest, following 20 years of pay stagnation. Real average earnings are not forecast to return to their 2008 peak until 2028. Four million people have been dragged into paying tax, with 3 million more in the higher rate—the biggest hit to income on record. Next year, real-terms income will be 3.5% lower than it was before the pandemic. This the biggest tax-raising Parliament Britain has ever seen.

Whatever the Conservatives say or do, and whichever way they try to twist and turn, reality has caught up with them. We have been here before. We remember the Conservatives promising to cut income tax ahead of the 1997 election. Back then, people decided that it was too little, too late, coming as it did after 22 tax rises in that Parliament. As this Parliament approaches its end, today’s Conservative party is showing itself to be even more divided and desperate than in the late ’90s. As the next election draws nearer and the Conservatives try to cling on to power, the risk grows that they will get more desperate with their promises and more reckless with taxpayers’ money. Britain needs a plan to get the economy growing and make working people better off. That is what Labour is offering and why a general election cannot come soon enough.

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[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to join this debate, albeit one attended by literally zero Back Benchers of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

This debate and the changes to national insurance raise narrow issues of the amount of tax being paid by our constituents, wider issues relating to the question posed by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray)—“Are you better off today than you were in 2010?”—and broader still questions about the value and purpose of life and what matters most to our constituents. I shall touch on all three in turn.

On the narrow issue, the national insurance payments mooted in the Bill, there is widespread agreement that they are good news for our constituents, because they mean lower tax. It is recognised that there is social justice in the measures, because they are not applicable to those earning more than £50,000 a year. We already know that no party in this House will oppose them. On the narrow issue, therefore, the Chancellor, the Treasury and those involved in creating the Bill have clearly got it right.

As my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) pointed out, this can easily be seen to be one of the measures by which we judge a turning point in the wider economy. After all, only a few months ago there were widespread expectations that the economy would be in recession, unemployment would be rising, taxes would be increasing, and there was very little wiggle room for the public finances to be seen to improve. All those things have been turned around. None of us can say with certainty that we are in full summer, but the green shoots are evident and things are changing.

On the broader issue of what we measure to answer the question, “Are our constituents better off today than in 2010?” there are different aspects. I suspect the shadow Minister had most clearly in mind a simple calculation of whether salaries net of inflation were higher or lower, and if we take that on its own, it will be a challenge for many Government Members to demonstrate that the answer is yes. For my constituents in Gloucester, average take-home pay has risen from £25,000 to £31,000, but their salaries have not kept up with increases in inflation. That is only part of the equation though; we need to take into account all the different forms of taxation, which include council tax. It is a cliché but true that council tax rises faster and is higher in Labour-run councils, whereas the Conservative-run council in Gloucester has done a good job of keeping it as low as possible over the last 14 years. Then, there is the question of take-home pay. As I pointed out to the shadow Minister, because income tax now applies only at £12,500, rather than at just over £6,000, the take-home pay element has increased by £1,000.

Other than that relatively straightforward financial calculation, there are many measures on which I hope all of us would want to answer “Yes” to the question, “Are you better off today than you were in 2010? I shall pick out a few of these crucial indicators, because they are relevant to the wider context of the Bill.

The Centre for Cities report is an excellent source of data for those who live in cities, so let me highlight a few elements of what its latest report said about Gloucester. We are one of the 10 lowest cities for economic inactivity. In effect, we have low unemployment and high employment —in fact, ours is the third highest employment rate, having risen last year from 76% to 84%, a 7.5% increase. The regional average is 79%, so we are way ahead of the south-west’s average. That means that many more people have purpose in their lives—they have occupations they can thrive in; they are bread-earners at home and useful role models for their children—and the city as a whole has a strong sense of purpose.

It is often forgotten, but many people remember vividly that their jobs were kept by the £400 billion spent during by the pandemic. The furlough scheme ensured that during the pandemic people could shelter at home, confident that their job would still be there, and those who had their own business know that the vast majority of those businesses would undoubtedly have gone bankrupt during the pandemic. The small businessmen and women, the self-employed, the entrepreneurs, all came through that period intact, whereas under a different scheme that would have cost taxpayers’ less, they would have struggled. The question, “Are you better off today than in 2010?” needs to encapsulate other questions: “Was your business able to survive? Was your job kept? Were you still able to be self-employed during a period when so many people around the world were struggling horribly?”

We in Gloucester are extraordinary in that our city has one of the very lowest percentages of population with no formal qualifications. In fact, extraordinarily, Gloucester has fewer people with no formal qualifications than Cambridge, and we are only 1% behind Oxford. The skills of my constituents are different from many of those in Oxford or Cambridge. A large number of our people are highly skilled with higher apprenticeships working in industries like aerospace, nuclear and high-level engineering. Those occupations, apprenticeships and higher apprenticeships have increased hugely over the last 13 or 14 years and are seriously threatened by the prospect—any prospect—of a Labour Government.

Let me illustrate that statistically. Since 2010, there have been almost 15,000 new apprenticeship starts in Gloucester—15,000 in a population of about 100,000. The run rate of apprenticeships nationally—5.5 million new apprenticeships since 2010—would have been almost halved under the Labour run rate between 2005 and 2010. Were Labour’s current proposals on apprenticeship spending to go through, it has been suggested that 140,000 apprenticeships would no longer exist. Therefore, the skills that my constituents have, which are being valuably used in leading sectors that are being supported by the Treasury and this Government, would be at serious risk under a new Government who did not value apprenticeships so highly.

The question, “Are you better off today than you were in 2010?” could also be rephrased, “What will happen to your skills, your purpose, your job and your future earnings under the changes proposed by the Labour party, which is so sadly absent here today?”

There are different issues that we need to consider in answering the question, “Are you better off today?” Education is vital for all of us, and everyone in the country needs to be more aware that our PISA rankings have risen from 25th to fourth in reading and from 27th to 16th in mathematics. I might be one off on both, but it is a significant leap forward. Those skills are vital to all our young constituents getting the opportunities they deserve.

Within infrastructure, there is the whole question of public transport. Gloucester has additional train services to Bristol, Worcester and down to London. There is a wider range of services, sports, culture and leisure, and cultural regeneration and the role of heritage are incredibly important to any city. Gloucester’s more than 40 wins from the National Lottery Heritage Fund have brought alive our old buildings and rebuilt pride in the city. These things are all part of answering, “Are you better off today than you were in 2010? Is where you live a better place today than it was in 2010?”

National insurance contributions are coming down sharply, which will mean an average saving of around £350 to each of my constituents and £450 for those on salaries over £35,000. All of that will be appreciated, but it is about the wider context in which it happens: the gradual recovery and the sense of green shoots coming through after a difficult year. That is important, and then there is the wider context of what has been achieved over the last 13 to 14 years. We must all take that into careful consideration.

Silicon Valley Bank

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

As I said to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), I do not think it is appropriate that I make comments from the Dispatch Box about the veracity or otherwise of statements made by an individual; I hope the hon. Lady respects that. It is, of course, right that anyone in a position of leadership in business takes responsibility and acts in good faith. Although there may well be lessons to be learned in time, the important point is that her constituents and their companies are able to operate, have access to their deposits and continue to do their work of growing important sectors of the economy. I hope the whole House will welcome that.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Congratulations to the Chancellor, the Minister and all those involved in resolving this problem, which tech companies in Gloucester and Gloucestershire will greatly appreciate. Does the Minister agree that this shows the importance of having Europe’s largest bank, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, regulated and headquartered here in London, and that this also shows that this Government will always support business? Lastly, since the Chancellor extended start-up loans in September, will my hon. Friend confirm that this Government have effectively helped create and sustain 33,000 new businesses?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our actions demonstrate that we are on the side of business. We mean it when we say that we want to make the UK the best place to start, grow and run a business, and, I will add, to list a business, because he is quite right that HSBC is an enormously successful global business that is headquartered in the UK and proudly listed on the UK stock exchange.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I can absolutely confirm that the House will not have to wait very long for that announcement—and yes, it will have a chance to scrutinise the announcement in detail.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

As well as reassuring financial markets and bringing down mortgage rates, the autumn statement did a great deal to help consumers and businesses through winter energy prices. When my right hon. Friend comes to announce what further help might be available for businesses after March, will those in the Treasury also highlight the opportunities for business from the increased business rate discounts for the hospitality and leisure sectors that will come in the spring?

[Jeremy Hunt]

We will certainly do that. I know that the 75% discount we announced for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will make an enormous difference to businesses in Gloucester, as will the £2.5 billion annual discount in business rates overall as we make the transition to the new system.

Co-operatives, Mutuals and Friendly Societies Bill (First sitting)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Mark Hendrick]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution and for the part he played in my getting this far with the Bill. I hope the Minister will indicate what moves are afoot and what progress will be made in that direction.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Bill is hugely supported by everyone present, but will the hon. Member clarify his proposed amendment to line 3 of the title to reflect the fact that the Bill aims

“to permit the capital surplus of mutual entities to be non-distributable”?

I understand exactly what he means about potential creditors moving those assets into a different structure—he mentioned the LV= situation—but what happens when a mutual, for whatever reason, sadly fails? At that stage, does the Bill allow for any remaining capital to be distributed to the members of that mutual?

[Sir Mark Hendrick]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. A lot depends on how it is framed at the start when the mutual or co-operative decides to register. Remember that this is an opt-in; therefore, any conditions upon the dissolution of the company will depend very much on its registration and constitution. Those would allow for this, if the organisation were so set up. I am sure that the Minister will comment on that as well.

Returning to the previous intervention, I hope the Minister will give some assurances, because there are obviously none in the Bill. I hope that moving in the direction of the Law Commission setting up a review of the sector and of the two pieces of legislation he wrote to me about that need review will bring the rules and legislation on co-operatives, mutuals, associations and friendly societies up to date with what is seen as best practice across Europe. Italy, France, Spain and Germany are far more advanced in how they help the sector, in terms of both taxation and the way in which organisations are viewed and are able to expand.

[Sir Mark Hendrick]

I concur totally with my hon. Friend.

Let me close by thanking you, Mr Mundell, and by thanking my colleagues for their contributions and for being present to support the Bill. I also thank everyone who has worked so hard to make it a success, including Peter Hunt and Mutuo, the Co-operative party, the co-operative sector, and the Minister and his Treasury officials. Only by working in a modern and supportive business environment will co-operatives, mutuals and friendly societies be able to make a full contribution to the prosperity of our country by serving the interests of customers, and, indeed, citizens.

[Richard Graham]

I should mention that I once worked for a mutual group and with co-ops, mutuals and friendly societies, Mr Mundell. That is, if you like, a declaration of historic interest.

Today’s Bill is indicative of the huge support for the sector from the hon. Member for Preston. He highlights the fact that co-ops, mutuals and friendly societies can still, and do, play a key role in modern finance. I congratulate him and successive Treasury Ministers on their partnership in bringing the Bill forward. In fact, everyone here is so supportive of the sector that we probably all qualify for the support of the Co-operative party—a recruitment opportunity that I hope it is alert to.

[Gareth Thomas]

Come over and join us.

[Richard Graham]

Thank you.

On the substance of today’s amendments, will the Minister clarify the point I raised in my earlier intervention, about whether the constitutions of the different categories of existing mutuals allow for the distribution of any remaining capital to members where that mutual—and, by application, its members—has decided for whatever reason to wind up?

Will the Minister also clarify that mutuals can use some element of capital, if they wish, for the purposes of merging to create more scalability? As we know, the challenge for mutuals is to raise capital—that has been part of the weaknesses of one or two of the co-ops over the past decade—and, should they no longer be able to go forward, it is important that members do not necessarily lose everything they have put in.

[Gareth Thomas]

Is there not a risk that what the hon. Member is advocating would actually drive a coach and horses through the purpose of the Bill, which is to stop demutualisation and the distribution of assets to members? Any demutualisation is usually driven by the directors, who will benefit enormously from it. What the hon. Member appears to be suggesting risks creating a loophole that actually protects members in terms of demutualisation going forward. Has he not considered that possibility?

[Richard Graham]

Sure, but what I am trying to ensure is that that option is not ruled out where one small co-op could benefit from merging with a couple of others to remain mutual, rather than demutualising. That is the key point.

We have seen that in a slightly different way with credit unions. I helped merge a small credit union in Gloucester with a number of others in Gloucestershire to create one single Gloucestershire Credit Union. That enabled it to survive for another decade, although, sadly, it has now failed.

The key thing is that there are moments when even a mutual can benefit from additional scale by merging with other mutuals—specifically so that it does not need to demutualise. That is really my point, and I am sure the Minister will be able to shed light on the issue.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I will raise a few points, but I am happy for the Minister to write to me afterwards, rather than trying to respond to them straightaway.

One question is whether the Bill applies to credit unions. I doubt it does directly, but I would say in parenthesis that the Minister ought to consider referring to the Law Commission the law on credit unions, to see whether there are ways in which we can fill the gap between credit unions, whose interest rates are strictly controlled, and other private lenders, whose rates can be enormously high. It seems to me that giving credit unions freedom to do more of their work more effectively and for a greater number of people is important. I also believe that it should be possible to confirm whether the law could be such that people could give money to credit unions as though they were giving to a charity.

Some of the questions that have been raised today are actually dealt with by the terms of friendly societies, co-ops and the like. They can transfer their assets to another one, if they fail. That is not covered in this Bill; this Bill gives permissive power, as the hon. Member for Preston told us. It does not deal with the challenge that it is possible to persuade members of a co-operative, mutual or friendly society to change their regulations to allow distribution—I think that is still within scope—but it means more difficulty.

In the LV= situation, members were asked to approve something; they could also be asked to change the rules. As far as I understand it, if a society, mutual or co-op uses this Bill when it is enacted, its provisions can be undone by the members. They are not fixed in concrete forever, but it means that those who intend to preserve the assets and stop them being given out can put a first roadblock in the way.

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[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Griffith)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and it is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ealing North. I congratulate the hon. Member for Preston on reaching Committee stage with this important Bill and on the role played by him and his team in championing the needs of the mutuals sector. I also congratulate my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, who did so much to pilot the Bill in its early stages and has given it his wholehearted support. It is always a pleasure to work with him, and I am pleased that we can take it forward.

I am pleased with the warm reception that the Bill has received right across the sector and on both sides of the House. A number of my colleagues look forward to their membership of the co-operative movement, and would it not be a wonderful thing if the co-operative movement once again graced both sides of the House? I always pay tribute to my thought leader in this space, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, who has consistently advocated the benefits of a place-based approach to policy. We continue to hang on his every word as to how we can make that a reality as we seek to level up the United Kingdom.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester raised some important points. I will write to him with what I consider to be the best legal position on the perfectly fair points he raised in pursuit of facilitating transactions that would protect mutuals, and not seek to undermine them or create a loophole, which I am sure is not the spirit of what he suggests. Nor would the Government want to see that or support that.

[Richard Graham]

It was interesting that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ealing North, raised an ambition to double, effectively, the size of the mutual sector. Although that is an admirable ambition, in an isolated sense, I think that there is work to be done on a review of the sector to see why some credit unions have failed, where the inability to raise capital is holding back the co-op and mutual movement, and what more can be done on some of the points mentioned by colleagues on both sides of the Committee to see where things are holding the sector back. Otherwise, the ambition in itself may not lead anywhere.

[Andrew Griffith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. It is a laudable ambition, which I am certainly happy to devote time to. Mutuals with the values of people in the community at their core are genuinely central to the vibrant, competitive and diverse—we are in favour of financial diversity—way in which the UK can serve the whole community. It is right that we look at how we do that, and how we can access capital. There are some technical points—I believe that Opposition Members understand that—in ensuring that we retain the tax advantages of mutuals, and do not inadvertently make them look more and more like corporate entities, which they are not, thereby prejudicing that tax treatment.

Autumn Statement

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

Local authorities have requested this package, particularly the two-year delay in the Dilnot reforms. Although those reforms are very important, we will not implement them, but we will leave the funding that was set aside for them with local authorities. That will help his council and many other councils.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment today to the triple lock, public services in general and health and education specifically. On the proposal from the previous Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee for an NHS staffing plan—he may recall that I supported that—will my right hon. Friend work with the Health Secretary to find ways to encourage more home-grown doctors, nurses and nursing associates to be trained locally, not least in the new University of Gloucestershire health teaching campus? Thanks to the levelling-up fund, that will open before long close to our Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

[Jeremy Hunt]

My hon. Friend is a brilliant MP for Gloucester. I do not want to pre-empt what the independently verified workforce review will say, but we will need all the places that are now training doctors and nurses, including Gloucester, to train more in the future.

National Insurance Contributions Increase

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that to the House’s attention. It is exactly why Labour said that the warm home discount should be expanded to ensure that the money goes to the people who need it, not the landlords.

At the same time as the Government are asking hard-working British people to pay more in tax, they are writing off billions of pounds in fraud. Ordinary people are paying for this Government’s waste. The Chancellor repeatedly ignored warnings about the holes in his covid business support schemes, resulting in £4.3 billion of public money being written off. That does not even include the amounts lost to bounce back loan fraud, including taxpayer cash handed out to drug dealers and organised criminals. That fraud currently stands at £4.7 billion, so that is £9 billion and counting handed to fraudsters. Then there is the colossal Government waste during the pandemic, with £8.7 billion lost on unusable personal protective equipment, all paid for by the taxpayer. Billions has been spent on crony contracts that have not delivered, and every single cheque has been signed by the Chancellor.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[Rachel Reeves]

Let me just finish this point. Yesterday, we saw a whole new meaning to burning through money. After wasting billions on unusable PPE, the Government are literally burning it to get rid of it—putting taxpayers’ money through the furnace. The Conservatives’ promise to get value for money for taxpayers has gone up in flames. Taxpayers do not want to keep picking up the price of these dodgy contracts, fraud and waste. I will be very interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s views on that.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The difficulty is that this is a debate about the national insurance contributions increase; it is not a debate about her wide range of thoughts on all sorts of other aspects of the economy. The problem with this particular debate is that this additional tax, which is hypothecated exclusively for health and care, will make a huge difference to millions of people across the country, including in Leeds, who have been waiting for elective surgery, want to see social care resolved and need the extra funds for it to happen. In addition, it is progressive, because the top 14% of taxpayers will pay half of the revenue raised. Surely she would approve of that.

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Gentleman knows that the average household in Gloucester will be £1,299 worse off because of the double whammy of tax increases and price increases. I think they would be pretty concerned about the amount of taxpayers’ money that is being written off in fraud and waste—money that is being burned by the Government.

Despite waste and fraud costing more than this year’s national insurance contribution rise will raise, the Prime Minister says that the tax rise is necessary. That is the great deceit. On the steps of Downing Street in 2019, he claimed to have a plan for social care. Yet almost three years on, we know that the Government’s approach to social care will not stop people selling their home to pay for care, it will not deliver a penny more to improve care today, and it will not add a single minute of care and support for those who need it. Even then, NHS waiting lists are set to rise even further for the next two years. The Government will not fix the problems with our social care sector or our NHS. Never before have taxpayers been asked to pay so much and got so little in return.

It is time for the Chancellor to urgently change direction. The national insurance tax rise was wrong in September and it is even worse in March. It is the wrong tax at the wrong time: the cost of living is higher, inflation is out of control, wages are not keeping up, energy bills are going through the roof and family finances are stretched, yet the Chancellor refuses to back our windfall tax plans to help.

The Chancellor has not turned up today, but my message to the Minister is that he must turn up to the spring Budget with a plan to make a difference to the cost of living. The Chancellor’s tax rise should not go ahead. MPs can send the strongest signal today by backing our calls to cancel the national insurance tax increase next month. They know full well that our country believes that it is time to change course.

The Conservative Government are not doing enough to cushion the blows. In fact, when it comes to the tax rise, they are piling on the pressure and making matters worse. They must think again and back Labour’s motion today.

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[Mr Clarke]

Making sure that we spend taxpayers’ money wisely is the central duty of any Government. It is something that, as Chief Secretary, I work very hard on with officials and Departments to make sure that we scrutinise spending in the way that delivers best value.

Some fairly spurious points have been raised about our record on issues such as PPE procurement, and we need to remember what I think could best be described as the brass neck of the Opposition in calling us out on this issue, when I think the hon. Member for Leeds West suggested at one point that we should procure our PPE from historical theatre re-enactment companies or fancy dress companies. Procuring PPE at pace brought with it some inevitable challenges, and it is vital that we had the resources to deal with the situation we faced at the time.

[Richard Graham]

The debate this afternoon is fascinating in a number of ways. The first one is that the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) rightly pointed out that Government is about choice. I remember vividly coming into this place in 2010, when the maximum someone could earn before paying tax was £6,000. It is now £12,500, which means £1,000 more in take-home pay for millions of our constituents. My right hon. Friend has confirmed that more than 6 million taxpayers will not be paying anything at all towards the 1.5% increase in national insurance, which will pay for their families’ and their parents’ hospital care and social care.

[Mr Clarke]

I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend has said, and it is a reflection of the fact that we have taken sensible measured steps against what has been a recurring series of unprecedented challenges—the financial crisis, our exit from the European Union, covid, and now the backdrop of conflict in Ukraine. All these things have had a major impact on the world around us, but our focus has consistently been on supporting people to do the right thing and to protect their finances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Thomson]

I say that I very much doubt that, and there is analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that suggests very differently, but again this comes back to the marginal rate of tax and there is no doubt that this is going to have a greater impact on the marginal rate of low earners than that of higher earners.

[Richard Graham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Thomson]

I would like to make some progress.

[Richard Graham]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member has made some very good points but I do believe he has inadvertently misled the House by claiming that those who are least well-paid will be paying the most on the tax when we have just heard from the Chief Secretary that over 6 million earners will not be contributing a penny towards the cost of the national increase rise. Mr Deputy Speaker, may I give the hon. Member, through your offices, the opportunity to withdraw his earlier remark?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That sounds like a debating point as opposed to a point for the Chair.

Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [Lords]

Richard Graham Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Our public servants do so much to support this country, and over the past 22 months their efforts have been more vital than ever before. NHS employees have worked long hours on the frontline of the fight against the covid pandemic, in hospitals and in the community; teachers have helped their classes in the most challenging of circumstances; and our police, firefighters and armed forces have kept people safe and solved new, unforeseen problems throughout these difficult months. Just as public servants have supported the country during the coronavirus crisis, so it is only right that in turn the Government should support them, which is why the Government have introduced this Bill to make sure that public servants of all ages receive guaranteed rights in their retirement that are among the best available, on a fair and equal basis.

In addition, the Bill includes measures to help to address the resourcing challenges that face our judiciary, to ensure that it can meet the demands of both the present day and the future. The Bill also lays the foundations for new public service pension schemes for beneficiaries of the existing Bradford & Bingley and NRAM—formerly Northern Rock—pension schemes. Currently, those pensions reside under UK Asset Resolution, the holding company for those businesses.

Let me turn to the Bill’s details. I shall start with how it creates fairer, more equitable and more sustainable public service pensions. As Members will recall, in 2010 the coalition Government established the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission, chaired by Lord Hutton of Furness. The commission carried out a deep, structural review of public service pensions. Following the review, the Government accepted the commission’s recommendations as the basis of discussions with members and their representatives, and ultimately introduced a number of major changes. Pension benefits would be based no longer on an individual’s final salary but, instead, on career average revalued earnings. Member contribution rates were increased and the normal pension age was linked to the state pension age for all schemes, except those for the police, firefighters and the armed forces. The changes were fairer for low earners because they resulted in a more generous pension for many. In addition, the reforms were estimated to save taxpayers £400 billion over the next 60 years.

Before the implementation of the reforms in 2015, the Government agreed, after trade union negotiations, to allow those closest to retirement to remain in the legacy schemes. Members within 10 years of retirement in most public service pensions were allowed to remain in the final salary scheme instead of being moved to the career average scheme. This was known as transitional protection. However, the courts found in 2018 that this transitional protection discriminated unlawfully against younger public service scheme members. Although the legal challenge related only to the judicial and firefighter schemes, the Government accepted the need to remedy the position across all public service schemes. A thorough programme of work therefore followed, to identify and implement a robust solution.

Following public consultations in 2020 and Government responses last year, the Bill creates the framework to bring the remedy into effect. For the remedy period—that is, from when the reforms were implemented on 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022—all eligible members will be given a choice between the legacy and reformed scheme benefits. Some members, especially lower earners, may be better off in the reformed schemes, so it is important that individuals get to choose which benefits they want to receive. For most members, that choice will be made at retirement, when it will be clearer which scheme is best for them. That is known as a deferred choice. There are three exceptions to this. The first involves members who have already retired. They will be given a choice once the necessary legislation and operational implementation are in place. The second involves the judicial schemes, where affected members will make their decisions in an options exercise to be held once the necessary legislative and data requirements are in place. This process is in line with the approach favoured by respondents to the judicial consultation. The third involves the local government pension scheme, which requires bespoke measures to reflect the unique features of that scheme. I intend to table amendments ahead of Committee stage to ensure that members of the local government pension scheme are also provided with a robust remedy. In short, these measures will ensure that all members of a public service pension scheme are treated fairly, whatever their age.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Minister will know that some of us have received correspondence from constituents suggesting, probably on the advice of their unions, that they will lose up to £500 a year when pensioned as a result of these changes. Can he confirm whether this is true? If it is not, what method can we deploy to reassure our constituents accordingly?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question; it is a good one. It is important to provide reassurance on this point. The McCloud remedy aims to ensure that where pension members are offered a different benefit to remedy the discrimination they have faced, they will be returned to the same financial position that they would have been in had they always been entitled to the benefits that they end up choosing. That reassurance should be clear. For the majority of individuals affected, there will be no change to the tax position. It is important to get on record that there will be no change for the vast majority, and that the Government will ensure that all the appropriate guidance is provided in good time so that people can make an informed choice and not worry about incurring any losses.

As well as giving our public servants fair treatment for the remedy period, the Bill will ensure that remains the case into the future. From 1 April this year, all the legacy schemes will be closed to future accrual. All eligible members will be placed in the 2015 reformed schemes or, in the case of the judiciary, moved to a new scheme. This guarantees that members within each scheme will be put on an equal footing. It also underlines the Government’s commitment to the 2015 reforms and the principles that underpin them. Those principles are greater fairness between lower and higher earners, fairness for the taxpayer, future sustainability and the affordability of public service pensions as a whole.

The Independent Public Service Pensions Commission also recommended that the new 2015 public service pension schemes should include a cost ceiling to protect the taxpayer from unforeseen cost increases. However, the Government have chosen to go a step further in establishing a symmetrical cost control mechanism. This will not only protect the taxpayer from unforeseen increases in pension scheme costs but protect the value of pension schemes for members when costs fall.

On how the remedy in the Bill will interact with the cost control mechanism, it will give members a choice between two sets of benefits and allow them to choose which will be better for them. The result is an increase in the value of schemes to members, and, as is usual, this is managed through the cost control mechanism. Crucially, however, to ensure that no members’ benefits are cut as a result, the Bill includes a measure to waive any result from the 2016 valuations that would otherwise have led to benefit reductions. That goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). In addition, the Government have committed to honour any benefit increases that are due.

Hon. Members will be aware that, in the light of concerns that the cost control mechanism was not operating as originally intended, the Government Actuary was asked to conduct an independent review of this particular element. Following that review, and a public consultation last summer, the Government confirmed that three changes would be made to the mechanism. All three changes are recommendations from the Government Actuary.

The first change is to implement a reformed scheme only design. This means that the cost of legacy schemes will no longer be included in the mechanism. The second is to widen the margin of the cost corridor, which triggers a correction, from 2% to 3% of pensionable pay. The third change is to introduce what is called a symmetrical economic check. This economic check will ensure that any breach of the mechanism is implemented only if it would still have occurred had the impact of changes to long-term economic assumptions been considered. These reforms will make the mechanism more stable and ensure that it operates more in line with its objectives of protecting the taxpayer and providing stability and certainty on member benefits and contribution rates.

I therefore wish to notify the House of my intention to table amendments before the Committee stage, to set the framework for implementing a reformed scheme only design and the economic check. The wider 3% corridor will be implemented through secondary legislation in due course. This approach will ensure that the reforms are in place in time for the next scheme valuations. That is important to ensure that the mechanism is operating more in line with its objectives to protect both taxpayers and members the next time it is tested.

As I have explained, the Bill builds on the existing legislative framework for all public service pension schemes. Each scheme is complex, because each one is tailored to fit each workforce’s individual requirements. The Government intend the Bill to reflect those differences, many of which are found in the detail of scheme regulations. Additional detail will therefore come before Parliament in the form of statutory instruments for further scrutiny. To demonstrate the approach to secondary legislation, policy statements have been deposited in the Library of the House for further scrutiny.

Let me now turn to the next element in the Bill, the package of reforms to help to address the resourcing challenges facing the judiciary. Our justice system is world renowned for its excellence, objectivity and impartiality. That is due in no small part to the expertise of our court and tribunal judges, our coroners and our magistrates. However, as the demands on our courts and tribunals have changed, so too has the need to recruit and retain judicial office holders. While we have recruited about 1,000 judicial office holders a year since 2018, we have not been able to attract the full number needed across all courts and tribunals, which has inevitably put pressure on the system. Raising the mandatory retirement age to 75 will, our modelling suggests, retain about 400 judges and 2,000 magistrates per year at a time when we face challenges in resourcing and recruitment.

It is vital that we continue to attract and retain high-calibre judges. The Bill therefore lays the foundation of a new, reformed pension scheme for judges, increases the mandatory retirement age of judicial office holders to 75, and extends the potential for sitting in retirement to the fee-paid as well as the salaried judiciary. It puts judicial allowances on a firmer legal footing, including those for reserved and excepted posts in Scotland and Northern Ireland. I assure the House that the UK Government will engage with the respective devolved Administrations before the introduction of such allowances.

Taken together, these measures will ensure that a judicial career is more attractive, that more of our experienced judicial office holders are retained for longer, and that additional flexibilities are offered. It is vital that we enable our world-class judiciary to meet the demands of today and tomorrow.

[Mr Clarke]

As Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend brings a huge amount of expertise to bear on this issue. I can make an absolute commitment that we will look at this, and I will always discuss plausible options to ensure that the judicial pension scheme supports recruitment rather than being in any way an impediment to it. That is very important, and it underpins our wider work on the new scheme for the judiciary. It will move from being tax-registered to being tax-unregistered, and a variety of consequential benefits will arise from that.

[Richard Graham]

If this were to be reviewed, it would be worth noting that a very similar issue applies to doctors, many of whom are inhibited from returning to work—following the appeal from the Health Secretary—by precisely the same lack of flexibility on the pensions and earnings issue.

UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations and Transition Period

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

What would be damaging for business is more prolonged uncertainty. Our businesses, as we have seen especially over the past year, are incredibly resilient and can cope with all sorts of things. What they cannot cope with is every eventuality as opposed to any eventuality. We need to give them certainty. I hope that we will soon be able to inform them of the remaining issues that the negotiating teams are working on. That will provide them with 100% clarity about the situation that they are facing. We will continue to support them to get ready for the transition.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

We all wish the Prime Minister, Lord Frost and the negotiating team every success in securing a deal with the EU, but should the trade talks fail, the Government’s reasonable worst-case scenario suggests that there might be significant issues with the flow of imported medicines in the first few months. Will my right hon. Friend therefore reassure all our constituents that, come what may, there will be no impediment to imported covid-19 vaccines and other crucial medicines—if need be, in the worst-case scenario, deploying military transport?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give my hon. Friend and his constituents those assurances. This is an incredibly serious matter. The supply of medicines and medical devices, even without the pandemic, has always been a priority, going right back to last year and the potential no deal scenario planning that went on, with huge efforts. His question affords me the opportunity to pay tribute to the civil servants, military personnel, local resilience forums and many other people who have been planning and conducting exercises—and of course all the people who have been working on the winter planning assumptions around that. I can give him those assurances that we take this very seriously indeed.

Black History Month

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I echo other Members’ congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) on securing this important debate, which I am sure will be influential in the life of our country.

In the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, more than 500 people in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields contacted me wanting to know what action would be taken. What had happened had struck a chord with their own lives and experience, and it represented the kind of society that we do not want to be. Many of them talked about our education system being at the root of the problems in our society, and a key part of their demand was the call for every schoolchild to be taught honestly and truthfully about Britain’s colonial history. I pay tribute to all those young people who wrote to me and to all the teachers who want to do more in their schools. It is essential that Britain wrestles with, and reckons with, our colonial past, as it is part of our history. As has been said many times, we also need to do all that we can to ensure that we value and celebrate the achievements of black Britons and black people across the world. That is what is so important about Black History Month. It is not just about history, but about our current world and about life at the moment. It is a time to celebrate activism, as it is that activism that has brought us to where we are today, and to understand how far we still have to go.

This subject cannot be a voluntary add-on. In previous debates, Ministers have listed the opportunities to bring black history into the curriculum—at both primary and secondary level. None the less, it is not good enough that it is optional for some teachers in some schools. I welcome the call by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead for a review of the national curriculum. I add to that the demand of the Black Curriculum campaign that there is a compulsory module for black history in key stage 3.

Developing curriculums takes careful planning and research. If the Government really are ready to take up the call and believe that we can teach the colonial legacy accurately and that every child can learn about black people’s contributions, they need to back it up with resourcing for schools. I pay tribute to UNICEF for its Rights Respecting campaign. Rights Respecting schools—there are three levels of bronze, silver and gold—have the opportunity to look at black history across the curriculum within the context of rights. Many schools in my constituency have used this scheme to great benefit.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because what she is showing is that innovations at a local level in teaching history, such as history festivals, can bring about huge differences. We have our own Gloucester History Festival. In fact, today is the last day that anyone in this House and outside can listen to Janina Ramirez’s conversation with David Olusoga on the gloucesterhistoryfestival.co.uk site free of charge. It is a wonderful discussion with one of our leading black history historians. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is the sort of thing that can make a huge difference to young people’s perceptions?

[Fleur Anderson]

I do agree and what an excellent advertisement for an event. I would add to that the work of Putney High School and of Chestnut Grove Academy. They have taken up the challenge to look at black history and to continue with innovation.

I join the call for the module to be compulsory and taught to every student. That would be a strong first step, and mean that all children will learn about black history—not just those who can go along to a festival or whose teachers have the time and resources to teach it. A compulsory module will require, as I have said, training for teachers and the development of resources. I join the call for the Department for Education to put in place a plan for the proper teaching of black history across our curriculum.

As a society, we must commit to an education system that fights racism, that ensures that every child can see their place in it and realise their full potential, that recognises the true and painful legacy of slavery and colonialism and puts it in the correct context, and that values the achievements of black people. Most of all, it will take us forward to a society that has no racism, that does not need to hold a debate such as this, that is truly equal and that ensures that we can all achieve our potential in society. Black history is British history and should be taught all year round.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate on such important matters, as so many have said before me. I want to start with a really positive message that the UK has traditionally been one of the most open, tolerant, welcoming and diverse countries in the western world, with some of the lowest levels of hate crime in Europe. That is consistently found in a number of recent large-scale studies such as the Eurobarometer poll, the World Value Survey and the European Value Study. We can be clear that there is much more to be done, yes. We can agree that even one example of racial hatred and prejudice is wrong, yes. But we must none the less acknowledge that the vast majority of people in this country are open, tolerant and accepting on diversity issues; I know my constituents certainly are. Where there are threats to tolerance and peaceful co-existence, they come from both sides of society, the left and the right. It is clear that active xenophobia, racism and violence are totally unacceptable in this country, and we should rightly challenge them by responding swiftly with the full force of the law.

Black History Month is a great opportunity for celebration, but on education and the curriculum we should be clear and tackle some other areas, such as the cancel culture, which attempts to close down debate, discussion and learning in our universities and other educational institutions, and seeks to influence society by instilling sometimes political ideologies into what should be a neutral and fact-based educational curriculum. We must not politicise education. Where that happens, it is a feature of some of the most oppressive regimes in the world.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is making a good case about not allowing cancel culture to infuse our society. Does he agree that the renaming of the David Hume tower in the University of Edinburgh is a good example of what should not happen? We are talking about a great 18th century philosopher and great figure in the Scottish enlightenment, whose name was taken away from the tower because of one footnote in one essay 300 years ago. Does he agree that that is not helpful to the teaching of history or of black history?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we know that there are many instances of this happening: what happened at the Proms; episodes of “Fawlty Towers” being taken off air; and politicians not being allowed to speak in university debates because their views perhaps differed from that of the university. I take my hon. Friend’s point entirely that there are many areas here, which is why I bring this issue to the Floor of the House.

As I was saying, some regimes fear free thinking and articulate citizens who may use their learning and fluency of thought to think for themselves in a free, democratic country, but we need have no such fears. We must never permit our educational system to become a vehicle for politics or politicising. Our schools and universities have always been and need to remain places of learning. They are places whose primary duty is to instil a love of learning, thinking and free expression, and to equip young people with the skills to think for themselves. That is why calls to decolonise our curriculum give me a little concern.

Our nation’s history is one of great breadth and depth, but we all know it is nuanced: there are examples of great triumphs and advances that have benefited civilisation in all kinds of ways; equally, there are examples of great failures and aspects of our past that through modern eyes and by today’s standards are shameless. All we need to do is teach—teach that history, warts and all, encourage as wide a range of perspectives as possible and facilitate the conversations that will empower young people to form their own conclusions about the issues that shape the world around them and to be meaningful contributors to the wider conversation. This is what we do every day. It is the cornerstone of our democracy. Our educational institutions should be reflections of the openness with which we debate, disagree, compromise and even find agreement here in Parliament. Robert Maynard Hutchins said:

“The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”

However, it was Francis Bacon who put it best:

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Black History Month originated in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month, and it was created to remember important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. In the mid-1980s, Ansel Wong led an initiative here, which eventually resulted in Black History Month in the United Kingdom.

It is important not to miss the real point of this debate. I would like to argue what Black History Month should be and maybe what it should not be. This is not about appeasement to ethnic minorities, because it is an important part of British history and an important part of history for all of us in this country. It sits alongside other histories—social histories, military histories, post-war histories, and the histories of peoples as well, such as the modern experience of Sikhs, British Jewry and Muslims in this country. As for the Isle of Wight, our African and black history goes back to the Roman empire. We had people from north Africa and people from Italy on the island because we were an early point of habitation by the Roman empire when it was in this country.

I do feel that Black History Month is getting caught up in other issues and unnecessarily politicised, because it is a fascinating subject in its own right. It is not about silly slogans about decolonisation. It is not about the tedious debate about woke activism or the cancel culture eloquently described by my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker). Nor is it solely about the drumbeat of slavery, although that is an important moral, economic and political issue.

On that point, until the UK abolished it, and however depressing it may be, slavery was a consistent norm in human experience. Our state, at the height of its power two centuries ago, used that power for an absolute moral good—manumission and the destruction of the international slave trade off west Africa. The West Africa Squadron, which used a considerable amount of the Royal Navy’s resources at the time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) eloquently pointed out, was a unique vehicle in history. As part of the most powerful military institution of that era, the Royal Navy was used for an absolute moral good: the destruction of slavery.

Yes, our history is complex. At the time of destroying slavery, we were also accumulating an empire, so it is easy to make accusations of hypocrisy, but rather than standing here like some agitprop student politician, I would rather understand the past and the complex worlds that people living before us inhabited, because it can help guide our way, frankly, to a better future.

[Richard Graham]

On that point, my hon. Friend may be interested that we have only one major statue of a slaver in Gloucester. It happens to be the Emperor Nerva of the Roman empire, who did indeed take slaves from the UK back to Italy. We have not done anything to daub him at all.

[Bob Seely]

I wonder whether some constituents from a couple of millennia ago were part of that trade—I hope not.

As a Trinidadian friend tells me, we do not help one group of people by pulling down others. Black history is fundamentally about so much more, whether it is the story of peoples such as the Windrush generation—I pay tribute to the extraordinary courage that people needed to get on that boat to come here from the Caribbean after world war two; it was an extraordinary thing—or individuals such as Mary Seacole, who was turned down by the War Office when she wanted to go and help British soldiers in Crimea. She got funding herself and went. Leading aircraftwoman Lilian Bader was the first black woman to join the armed forces in world war two. She ended up as a corporal. Joan Armatrading was the first ever UK artist to be nominated for a Grammy in the blues category. The first black peer was Lord Constantine. Trevor McDonald is incredibly well known. On the Isle of Wight, our modern cultural history will, I am sure, heavily feature Derek Sandy’s classic reggae “Welcome to the Isle of Wight”.

There is much to debate about genuine Black History Month, as opposed to politicised statements around race. On one side of the Chamber, I think we have had a rather negative view of our history, of humanity and of a world divided into oppressors and victims. On the Conservative Benches, I think we have had a rather more optimistic view of human nature. While humanity is not perfect, there is much to celebrate. I am very proud of this country, and I am proud of our record. Life is not perfect and nor are we, but the way we make that better is to understand the world, and I hope that is what Black History Month will help us do.

Economic Outlook and Furlough Scheme Changes

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. In the middle of a crisis, with emergency responses being brought out almost every other week, it would be a brave person who could commit to any sensible forecast with a degree of accuracy of what the future may bring. We have already seen astonishing changes to levels of GDP even in a month.

On the points the hon. Lady raises, I just remind her that the job retention scheme has so far supported nearly 9 million people—8.9 million people—and 1.1 million businesses. The self-employed scheme has supported 2.3 million individuals at a cost of £6.8 billion. Both schemes were brought in at record speed precisely to address the critical need to get the vast majority of people the support they would need, and to target that, wherever possible, on the most vulnerable. I do not think that those were mistakes. I do not think it would have been right to delay the process. I think it has been recognised by Opposition Members across the piece that a delayed response—which, on advice received from experts within HMRC and elsewhere, would have been the inevitable result—would have been a mistake and we took the view that we should proceed. I put it to the hon. Lady that the two schemes in question, together with a plethora of other support, have been extremely effective.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Getting skills is the key to employment opportunities for the young. Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have made encouraging noises about recognising the importance of apprenticeships. I propose that the Government shoulder the entire costs of the first year of all new apprenticeships awarded this autumn—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The two Members—the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) and the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty)—cannot stand together. Richard Graham, please start again.

[Richard Graham]

I will start again. Skills are the key to employment opportunities for the young. Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have made encouraging noises about recognising the role that apprenticeships can play in that. My proposal is that the Government shoulder the entire first-year costs of all new apprenticeships awarded this autumn. The key point is that further education colleges, other trainers and businesses need to be able to plan ahead so that they can market those apprenticeships. Will my right hon. Friend today give some reassurance and commitment on the support the Government might give apprentices, so that bounce-back Britain’s new apprentices know there are lots of opportunities ahead?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I am in awe of his ability, without notes, to recall exactly the same wording of his question when asked to give it a second time. That is magnificent. He was obviously an actor in a previous life.

Let me respond to the point my hon. Friend made. He is absolutely right about apprenticeships. He will know that, because he will know of all the work we are doing in Hereford to set up a new model in technology and engineering; a university combining higher education and further education specifically in order, in due course, to be able to extend to degree and degree apprenticeships. He will also know that the Budget—people have forgotten this—and the spending round before it have been very supportive of further education. That is a commitment of this Government. As he will know, the Education and Skills Funding Agency published guidance in this area, and the job retention scheme provides funding for businesses. We will continue to look closely at the issue he describes, and I thank him for his question.