Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I listened with care and interest to the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), and I challenge the idea sometimes portrayed by Conservative Members that the Labour party is somehow against business and does not understand it or the value it creates for the economy. We all do. I meet many small and large businesses in my community every week. Of course I want to see them grow and employ more people. I want them to employ people on better wages with better conditions and add that value. The hon. Gentleman’s comments about people being able to buy Ferraris are revealing and go to the heart of the Government’s problem, which is that they have done so much to help big businesses and bigger earners but done so little—or indeed have targeted—those who have less, be they small businesses or individuals on low incomes. That is the fundamental difference between those on the Government Benches and those on the Opposition Benches.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the Finance Bill and to support the reasoned amendment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) made clear, the Bill is long and weighty but will do remarkably little, if anything, to tackle the cost of living crisis facing many of my constituents. It will do much to support bigger earners and bigger businesses at the expense of small and medium-sized enterprises and businesses, and small and medium income earners in constituencies such as mine. It will do very little for the bank clerk or the call centre operator working for the banks and the financial industry in my constituency. It will do very little for the cleaner taking on a second or third job to make ends meet to be able to pay basic bills. The basic costs of living, whether energy, food or heating, are rising for them. It will do very little for the shift workers working in supermarkets in my constituency.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

This is a completely different Finance Bill from the one we have before us. The only decile of income that will actually be worse off in the next year is the top decile. In this Budget, there is £15 off fuel bills, a rise to £10,500 in the personal allowance, which helps the lowest paid most of all, and the freeze in fuel duty. All that helps the worst-off in society.

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Gentleman fails to note that the average worker has become £1,600 worse off since his Government came to power. I am sure that he is doing relatively well, but many people in his constituency, and certainly in mine, are not. Small businesses in my constituency are struggling with energy bills and business rates.

Hard-working people across my constituency are £1,600 worse off since the Government came to power. The increase in the personal allowance is often paraded by Government Members, but that is dwarfed by the 24 tax rises that have hit hard-working people. At the same time, the Chancellor has given a tax cut to millionaires. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) is not in his place, but he spoke on that earlier. The economic adviser to the leader of Plaid Cymru has apparently also supported that recently.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty]

On Second Reading, the hon. Gentleman said:

“A lot of campaigning organisations, including the NCVO…receive a lot of money directly from the Government, and they are now spending that Government money lobbying the Government. That seems a terrible waste of public funds.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 236.]

First, that creates a somewhat misleading picture because obviously the majority of an organisation’s funds are not spent on lobbying the Government. Secondly, will he concede that he has a wider agenda on this?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am more than happy to say that this is the tip of the iceberg and that as the Titanic steams towards that iceberg, it is about to emerge to cut a swathe through its side. I firmly believe that it is absurd for the taxpayer to dish out money that is then spent paying lobbyists to lobby the Government. That is not why hard-pressed taxpayers pay income tax, VAT and other duties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is not entirely accurate. If she were to trouble herself to look at the NCVO accounts, she would see that the largest contribution of non-allocated money—£500,000—is from the Government. When the NCVO spends unrestricted money on campaigning, there is a very good chance that it is Government money, which seems improper. I am well aware of the distinction between restricted and non-restricted money. Unfortunately, many Government grants are not sufficiently restricted and therefore can be used to lobby the Government. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) challenged me on that—I am concerned about that too, but it is not the specific point I am making.

[Stephen Doughty]

Does the hon. Gentleman believe that charities in receipt of public money should be able to campaign outside election periods?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Charities should be able to campaign for their fundamental beliefs, but lobbying the Government with the Government’s money—taxpayers’ money—is a suspect activity. We do not pay our taxes to allow bodies to oppose or support the Government.

Financial Transaction Tax and Economic and Monetary Union

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

There is no case for a financial transaction tax. It would be enormously destructive of this country’s financial system. The cascade effect to which the Minister referred is at the heart of this. When things are being traded dozens of times a day, what starts off as a little tax suddenly becomes a very big tax. The hon. Gentleman conjures £10 billion out of the air. We cannot withdraw £10 billion from the economy without it having an economic effect and without it being paid for by somebody.

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Gentleman is making a dramatic and scaremongering speech. If the FTT is such a terrible idea, I wonder why people such as Bill Gates, George Soros and, indeed, 1,000 of the world’s leading economists, backed the principle of such a tax.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I seem to remember that 365 economists said that Margaret Thatcher had got it wrong in 1981, but one great and noble Prime Minister had got it right and 365 economists were flawed in their thinking. I would back the British politician against a collection of academic economists living in an ethereal world.

A financial transaction tax would ultimately be paid for by the British people through higher housing costs, lower pensions and possibly through higher Government borrowing costs leading to higher overall taxation. Of course the Labour party wants higher taxation, because that is what it has always been in favour of—more taxes, more spending and a worse economy.

I would now like to move on to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), because they, too, are extremely important. They relate to the European Union’s ambitions to become a superstate based on the euro. I accept that we are outside the euro, but that is not entirely a protection from the development of the EU along the lines of a single state with a single Government based in Brussels. Of the papers we are considering today, there is one from the European Commission showing that it wants within 18 months to have a eurozone seat on the International Monetary Fund’s board, that it wants within five years to co-ordinate eurozone tax and employment policies, and that it wants a political union with adequate pooling of sovereignty with central budgets as its own fiscal capacity and a means of imposing budgetary and economic decisions on its members. That means a single Treasury and a single fiscal union.

The danger for us is that, as the European Union obtains more powers for the eurozone, our association with it will become very different from the present one, and one in which we have little influence over what happens because we are outside it. Alternatively, we could get dragged into the arrangements because, as our experience of the European Union shows, our opt-outs will ultimately expire. We have seen that happening with the social chapter, and we will see it again next year with the decision on title V of the Lisbon treaty. We should therefore be very careful about the ambitions of the European Commission in relation to this single government for the eurozone.

We should also be cautious about what the President of the European Union, Mr van Rompuy, has to say. He has published a paper lauding the success of the euro and all that it has done. It states:

“The euro area needs stronger mechanisms…so that Member States can reap the full benefits of the EMU.”

That is a fascinating way of phrasing it: “the full benefits”. After all the other benefits that they have so far received, there are further benefits to give the member states if only they will join a tighter system of governance. I wonder whether the unemployed Greek youths have noticed all the benefits that they have received from this wonderful beneficent eurozone.

Mr van Rompuy has also been kind enough to say:

“‘More Europe’ is not an end in itself, but rather a means for serving the citizens of Europe and increasing their prosperity.”

I am proud to say that I am a subject of Her Majesty, and not a citizen of Europe. The idea that we need more Europe to benefit the citizens of the member states is palpably false. The more Europe we have had, the worse the situation has become. The more powers that have accreted to Europe, the more bureaucratic, less democratic and worse run has become the whole system of the European Union. The economies of the European Union have suffered because of the euro.