Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Andrew Jones

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), who spoke very wisely. I apologise to the House for not having been here throughout. I have been attending the Speaker’s Conference, and the Speaker gave give me permission to leave the Chamber for part of the debate.

I would like to focus on just one aspect of the Bill, which has attracted much comment, and that is democratic oversight. There has been some comment that, under the Bill, Ministers will be able to make changes to legislation without any form of scrutiny. That is not the case, but that misinformation seems to have been widely distributed.

There has been significant scrutiny of legislative changes post Brexit, and that scrutiny will continue with this Bill. One part of that scrutiny has been delivered by the European Statutory Instruments Committee. I am most familiar with the working of that Committee, because for the last few years I have chaired it. Our work is not widely known, so I thought it would be helpful if I quickly mentioned the procedure we have used. Obviously, I am not detailing it for colleagues, who will all know it, but for those following the debate, for whom it might be slightly less familiar.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that it is rather ironic—given that some people have argued against Ministers being given these powers, because they could, without scrutiny, reduce the standards of environmental, employee and consumer protection—that the Deputy Speaker has just announced that Royal Assent has been given to three Acts that were designed to protect workers’ rights? Does that not give the lie to the idea that this Bill is all about reducing standards?

[Andrew Jones]

In that insight, the right hon. Gentleman is as wise as ever. There is no intention whatever of rolling back environmental protection or rights that have been hard won. The Government are building on those and seeking to leave a much better nation in environmental terms than the one we found. The right hon. Gentleman is clearly right, and he echoes comments made by other colleagues in the debate.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Andrew Jones

Committee stage & Committee of the Whole House (Day 1)
Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

I am aware that time is short, so I will keep my remarks brief.

All of us will have been dealing with constituents facing real financial challenges over the past year. The past months have been unprecedented in their impact on family finances. People have lost jobs, been on furlough, and faced great uncertainty. It has been genuinely hard. Yet some sectors have done very well and seen growth, so the economic impact of the pandemic has fallen very unevenly. The economic consequences have also landed very quickly, but the response from the Treasury was equally quick. We are now facing the next stages of the crisis. Over the months ahead, we will be getting the economy moving again as quickly as possible, safely, so that we can get people back into work, and considering how the Government will pay for all the extra costs they have incurred.

As my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said, economists have predicted that the economy will have fully restarted by April next year. I think that that is right, based on my own business experience and on conversations with businesses in my constituency and beyond. It therefore makes sense to start the recovery of the public finances then, and that is what some of the measures in this Bill do. The question for me, though, is how to do this fairly and without choking off the recovery.

Let me focus on one measure: personal allowances. The increases that we have seen in personal allowances over the past decade have been a key ingredient in helping some of the least well-off in our society. The allowance has nearly doubled and is one of the most generous in the world. It has been part of the broader initiative, which has been a hallmark of the past 10 years, about making work pay. It is with some caution that we should consider changes, but I will be backing these changes and urge Members to reject the Opposition amendment on this measure. It is worth remembering that nobody’s take-home pay will be less than it is now, and that this is a measure that builds over time, as will the pace of the recovery. I note that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), who is not in his place, commented that it is a fairer way to raise revenue than some others, and I agree with his analysis.

The crisis support packages have been necessary and welcome, but they come with a huge cost. There is no compassion in letting debts build up for future generations to pay off. There is no stability for Governments in failing to tackle deficits.

[Sammy Wilson]

While I think we all accept that the current level of debt cannot continue, does the hon. Gentleman accept that, first, by taking £10 billion from consumers in the next year as a result of these tax allowance freezes and, secondly, because we do not know what will happen to unemployment once the furlough scheme finishes, there is a risk that the freezes this year will impact on the short-term recovery of the economy? Are they not therefore inappropriate, and ought not the Government to wait to see what happens?

[Andrew Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point, as he always does. I have considered that point, and I know that the Government have also considered it, but this is about striking a balance between encouraging the recovery and choking it off. Part of that recovery is ensuring that we have sound public finances. We have had two supposed once-in-a-century events in just over 10 years, and the lesson we should draw is that financial responsibility allows Governments to respond to crises at scale. That is what we have just seen here, and that has helped the finances of families across our nation when they needed it most.

That is also why the economic recovery, with its focus on growth and investment and on households and Government, cannot be put off. The personal allowance measure in the Bill should proceed. We should not listen to the Labour party because, quite frankly, its Members have voted against all the personal allowance increases in Budget measures over the past 10 years. We need to get the focus that we have had on saving lives back on to recovering livelihoods.