Finance (No. 3) Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is setting out his case very well. In recent years, there has been an ever-speedier move towards the globalisation of our economies, and he is absolutely right that this assessment and review is needed in respect of our obligations to global society. My hon. Friend has set out that case perfectly. Does he agree that it is crucial that we do not overlook some of the global challenges in tackling poverty and climate change?

[John McDonnell]

Yes, and when the various groups lobbied us last month it was interesting to note how the debate had progressed since the original discussions about the Tobin tax. The debate had become much more refined and concretely related to the global needs that my hon. Friend mentioned. There has been a debate about how we allocate these resources and what the greatest priorities are, and so far it has been about poverty in this country so that we do not in any way undermine support for such taxation among people in the UK, but we must balance that with support for efforts in the developing world. The climate change issue has also come on to the agenda since the Tobin tax was first proposed.

One question that arose in the discussions in Central Hall was what the effect would be if we did raise, for example, £20 billion in this country. It was said that if we spent £4 billion, we could halve child poverty in this country overnight, and if we spent £5 billion, we could insulate every home and therefore take people out of fuel poverty. Such examples bring home the reality of what could be done through such a tax.

It is not a tax on normal retail banking or on savings or mortgages. It does not hit the ordinary saver. It is a micro-tax, and in some ways a tax on short-term speculation banking. It does not fall on UK banks alone either, as foreign banks operate in the City. I would take particular delight in taxing Goldman Sachs in this way—that is a personal grudge—but there are also other hedge funds operating in the City of London. A strong argument, which we have heard today, has been made for seeking international agreement. Negotiations are taking place and there is consensus, even within the European Parliament, on introducing a European-wide financial transaction tax. My concern about that is that the European discussions were about using that tax to fund the European Commission—I might have more than reservations about that proposal.

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[John McDonnell]

There is a spell, is there not—[Interruption.] The new sequel film is coming out soon, so we will see what spell there is to retain bankers in this country, if we need them.

I do not take this issue about international agreement lightly. That is why I am calling for a report, as any report would examine that issue. We are going back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) made earlier, because this country is best placed to take the lead in trying to secure some of these agreements and such a report could address how we could do that. However, it certainly should not hold us back from taking unilateral action.

The other matter that has been raised in this debate previously is the concern about avoidance, but we can design out any avoidance measures. We can design this tax to make it difficult to avoid, just as we did with stamp duty.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend rightly talks about taking the lead. Are we not hearing exactly the same arguments as the ones used against my private Member’s Bill to tackle vulture funds in the previous Parliament? Thankfully, the Bill was pushed through by the previous Government using the wash-up procedure and it has been made permanent by this Government. Were not exactly the same arguments employed during the debate on that Bill? Is it not sometimes right that we do take the lead?

[John McDonnell]

Yes, I had forgotten that example. It is a good example of how unilateral action can raise the standard overall across Europe and globally.

Another issue raised in our debate on the Tobin tax a number of years ago concerned whether it would be practical. Things have moved on since then and the system for undertaking financial transactions is highly automated and centralised. New systems have been put in place, and I refer Members to the study by the Institute of Development Studies that identified how the system now operates:

“The Continuous Linked Settlement Bank, launched in 2002, now settles more than half of all foreign exchange transactions, with the remainder processed through national real-time gross settlements systems.”

Now we have the systems in place, through advances in new technology, to monitor the process and thereby ensure that tax is collected easily and that avoidance can be prevented.