Stamp Duty Land Tax (Reduction) Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Christopher Chope

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I very much understand why my right hon. Friend raises that point. I know he took a great interest in the autumn statement and listened carefully to the submissions and oration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). We had to take some difficult decisions in the course of the autumn statement to ensure that our approach to the economy is fiscally responsible. This is one way in which we hope to stimulate the housing market in the next two years in the difficult economic circumstances we find, but thereafter we are confident that the economy will improve and we will be able to return to the status quo as it was before 23 September. However, the broader picture about reducing the taxation burden on our constituents still stands. Indeed, I hope my right hon. Friend listened with great interest to the Prime Minister’s speech last week in which he made it clear that that is our ultimate goal.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

On 17 October, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer told this House that this particular element of the mini-Budget relating to stamp duty land tax would be retained. It was on that basis that the Bill was introduced in the House. It was only a month later that we had the autumn statement when the Chancellor of the Exchequer went back on what had been said earlier.

[Victoria Atkins]

Again, my hon. Friend puts his finger on the point as to the very, very fast-moving economic conditions we have faced in the last few months. He will recall the autumn statement and the great detail the Chancellor went into in terms of ensuring that our approach is fiscally responsible. We had to acknowledge and react to the conditions as we found them then. We are confident that the sunset clause in the Bill will enable us to support our constituents. Indeed, it is happening at this very moment in time, because, of course, we brought in the measures as soon as possible immediately after the original announcement. They are helping, for example, first-time buyers get on to the housing ladder.

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[Victoria Atkins]

This is precisely why the Government are so committed to levelling up. Although I know how beautiful my hon. Friend’s constituency is, having had the pleasure of visiting it, in my beautiful corner of England, we do not, sadly, have the transport links that other constituencies have. It is precisely this drive for levelling up, which I know Conservative Members are united on, which may help with some of the issues he sets out so eloquently.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. It comes down to how we define, “levelling up”. The point I am trying to make is that, if somebody is buying an average house in Christchurch, or in her constituency of Louth and Horncastle, it should not make any difference in terms of taxation whether the house is going to cost £405,000 or £200,000. Why should the person buying a house in Christchurch who wants to become a teacher or an NHS employee in the area not only have the burden of having the higher house price—she has referred to some of those issues—but have to pay £10,000 in SDLT for the privilege of moving into the Christchurch constituency to purchase an average-priced house? I do not see any justice in that at all. In levelling up, we should be putting those two categories of person on the same level when it comes to their liability for paying transaction taxes.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet made the suggestion, which I have also made, that we should scrap SDLT. If we want to have a transaction tax, we should introduce one based on, for example, the size of a property, because that would be neutral; it would really be levelling up across the country. Obviously, it would be more popular with some people than with others, but it would certainly be very popular with my constituents and it would meet the criterion of levelling up.

Rape: Criminal Prosecutions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Christopher Chope

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot comment on an individual case. On local policing, the local CPS and the application of all the measures we have talked about in this urgent question so far, the point of the dashboards is precisely to give him, me and others that data, which otherwise has not been collated, so that we can start asking those questions about individual areas. For example, we know that West Yorkshire is doing better than the national average on the police referring cases to the CPS. My question is: why can we not replicate that nationally? We are having those sorts of conversations, with non-defensive transparency, which, I hope, will really begin to see results for victims.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for her emphasis on local facts. This morning, I was talking to Suzanne Llewellyn, the chief Crown prosecutor for Wessex, who told me that currently 12 people are being prosecuted for rape in Dorset, which is twice as many as in the same period of 2016, and that in three of the past four quarters the rape conviction rate in Dorset has been 100%, which obviously compares very favourably with the national average of 68%. So there is good news at the local level, and we need to do more to bring that to the public’s attention.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that. I genuinely encourage every Member to look at the figures and have those conversations with their local police and CPS to understand what is happening in their local areas. I welcome this scrutiny; it is absolutely the right way to drive change. I thank him for his particular focus on his local area.