Finance Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and John Redwood

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

No, I do not share that view and I do not think that was a very effective point. There was quite a lot in the Conservative manifesto. Indeed, there were some things in the Conservative manifesto that the Conservatives were rather surprised about, and we have been having friendly family conversations about them ever since. I am sure that my hon. and right hon. Friends will discern that there are some better parts of the manifesto which we are most keen to get on with. However, we certainly did not just have a manifesto of page numbers, as I am sure the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) will remember. The smile on his face tells me that he enjoyed some parts of the Conservative manifesto as well. We are all very pleased about that, even though he was probably amused by different parts of that particular publication from the ones that I was amused by and pleased about.

We wish to see a policy that promotes enterprise and growth. That means taxing people in companies with the money fairly and sensibly, but also setting internationally competitive tax rates that they will stay to pay and ensuring that the country is an attractive place in which people want to do business, invest and employ.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is talking about practical application, rather than merely theory. When President Hollande took office in France, he hiked the French tax system in order to squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked, as it were. My right hon. Friend will recall that the wealthy French then moved in very large numbers to Chelsea. The lingua franca of Chelsea changed from Russian to French overnight. People will move to where they find the tax regime benign and fair.

[John Redwood]

That is quite right. And they will all contribute to our tax revenues and not to the French tax revenues in the process, which means the French state has an even more difficult task.

There was one particularly important thing in the shadow Minister’s speech. He correctly agreed with the Government that we need to raise productivity. He would not take my intervention, in which I wanted to raise one of the sadnesses in the long period of Labour Government from 1997 to 2010. The Labour Government had so much money to spend because they inherited a prosperous economy. In fact, they extended that prosperity in the first part of their government before they went for the crash in the end. However, although they had quite a lot of money to spend, there was no growth whatever in public sector productivity over those 13 years.

In this House, we all say we want to raise productivity. Surely we should take a special responsibility for public sector productivity because that is the sector in which we directly spend the money, employ the people, hire the managers, and set the aims and objectives. As the Labour party is particularly close to the public sector in many ways, it would be good if it shared with us some thinking on having a policy that really does promote higher-quality and better-paid jobs in the public sector. If we have a more productive workforce, we can pay them better and create better conditions. That is what we all want to do.