Finance (No. 2) Bill

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

During her research for the debate, did the hon. Lady become aware of the fact that 93% of young teenagers still living with both parents are with married parents? That is quite a powerful statistic.

[Catherine McKinnell]

That is an interesting statistic. I know that the hon. Gentleman is committed to the principle of this measure, but I and other Opposition Members are trying to make the point that the policy is not only dud as regards its practical application but further compounds the unfairness in how the Government have made their decisions in Budget after Budget. Let us remember when hon. Gentlemen question what my point has to do with this measure that we know that the majority of gainers from the policy are men.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

We must consider this clause in the context of the current situation. We know that families up and down the country—in fact, all households—are facing a cost of living crisis. We have had three years of a flatlining, stagnating economy and households up and down the country have been paying the price for that. We have a Government who are introducing measures that will benefit a small proportion of married couples—only one in six households with children—and under which 84% of the gainers will be men, when we know that those who have paid the bulk of the price so far for the deficit reduction strategy that the Government have been pursuing have been women. It is a question of priorities, and this Government seem to have them completely wrong.

[Andrew Selous]

I want to check that I heard the hon. Lady correctly. She talked about a flatlining, stagnating economy, so I wonder whether she heard the International Monetary Fund say yesterday that we have the fastest rate of growth in the IMF and in the whole of the G7 at 2.9%.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I think that Government Members would love to try to whitewash and erase from the memory of the public the past four years, three of which have had zero—that is, flatlining—growth in the economy. People will be £1,600 worse off on average in 2015 than they were in 2010 and whatever growth is happening in the economy now is happening despite, not as a result of, the Government’s economic policies. I urge hon. Members to exercise caution in saying that everything in the garden is rosy when people out there are struggling to make ends meet.

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[Tim Loughton]

That is the view of one constituent who has not yet listened to the whole debate. Introducing a married couple’s transferable tax allowance in no way disadvantages that constituent. [Interruption.] In what way is she financially disadvantaged? It is a typical Labour response to say that if someone is in favour of something, they must be anti something else. I am in favour of doing a lot more for constituents who find themselves in that position through no fault of their own and who need help, support and recognition. However, there are also many married couples who need support in bringing up their children, often in difficult circumstances. Just because we want to help them, it does not mean that we are disadvantaging somebody else.

[Andrew Selous]

Of course, everyone in every part of this House is against abuse in any type of relationship. If we want to reduce abuse, does my hon. Friend agree that we should recognise that women and children are significantly more vulnerable to violence and neglect in cohabiting families than in married families? What we are doing today is part of addressing that issue.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend has done a great amount of work on this issue and there is a much bigger picture.

This policy is popular among the public. It is popular with a majority of Labour voters. It is even popular with an awful lot of Liberal Democrat voters, despite that party’s policy being against it. Last May, the Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills attacked the “prejudice” directed at stay-at-home mothers. I am sure that he would have included stay-at-home fathers to be inclusive. It is deeply insulting to the many millions of married couples who have decided to make a lifelong commitment to each other that is recognised in law in front of their family and friends to suggest that we are discriminating in some way against other people.

Some 90% of young people aspire to get married. Some 75% of cohabiting couples under the age of 35 also aspire to get married. There are many forms of family in the 21st century and many people do a fantastic job of keeping their families together and bringing up children, often in difficult circumstances. However, as many of my hon. Friends have said, almost uniquely among the large OECD economies, the UK does not recognise the commitment and stability of marriage in the tax system until one partner dies. Worse still, one-earner married couples on an average wage with two children face a tax burden that is 45% greater than the OECD average, and that gap continues to widen.

To introduce such a recognition of marriage, particularly in the modest form suggested in the Bill, is not to disparage parents who find themselves single through no fault of their own, nor to undermine couples with two hard-working parents, all of whom rightly get help and support from the state in other forms and for whom we might need to do more. Uniquely, married couples, civil partners and same-sex marriage partners are discriminated against in our tax system.

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[Helen Goodman]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and I certainly will not yield one inch to her in the value I place on the importance of marriage. Like her, I am a member of the Mothers’ Union, the Church of England organisation that promotes and supports stable family life in this country. However, she is making a mistake. The undoubted benefits of stable relationships could be far better encouraged by the Government in several ways: if, for example, resources for tackling domestic violence were not being reduced; if, for example, we had compulsory sex and relationship education in schools that prepared people for healthy adult relationships; and if, for example, we had a decent child support system that did not incentivise the non-resident parent to ignore their responsibilities to their children, because that is what is happening. Instead of tackling those real problems, or looking at the factors that put families under stress—debt, long hours and zero-hours contracts—the hon. Lady ignores them. She does not understand that those factors are the cause of rows, tension and stress in families. If Government Members turned their attention to policies that would make a real difference, instead of faffing around with this fatuous married couple’s allowance, families would be a lot better off.

[Andrew Selous]

If this policy is so fatuous, why is it that more than 80% of the population covered by the OECD live in countries that recognise marriage in the tax system? Are they all completely wrong? Are they are all wedded to fatuous systems?

[Helen Goodman]

That is exactly the point that I was about to come on to. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said that we should place the well-being of children at the centre of this policy. That is a perfectly reasonable starting point for this debate, but which country is near the bottom of the UNICEF child well-being table and which is at the top? The country near the bottom is the UK: the country at the top is Denmark, which has the highest rate of single parenthood in Europe. It is at the top because it has a proper welfare state, decent child care and properly functioning systems so that people can look after their children properly. If we want to do something for children, we should have policies that promote the well-being of all children, not just a small minority of children who happen to live in a particular family structure.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham asked, “Why do Opposition Members suggest that just because you are in favour of marriage, you are against other patterns of family life?” That is not my view. I am in favour of traditional families, as I have said, but I also think that we need to support all families. The reason we are concerned about this policy is—as the hon. Gentleman should understand—that we can only spend the money once. We cannot spend it twice or thrice over—[Interruption.] Government Members talk a good talk, but they do not seem to understand the practical implications.

People in this country are facing a severe cost of living crisis. We are seeing an increase in the number of children living in absolute poverty. More than 600,000 families are going to food banks. If hon. Members had any real concern for child well-being, they would address those issues, not come here proposing £700 million of expenditure on a tiny group.

[Andrew Selous]

Those of us on the Government Benches care deeply about child poverty, and we believe that family breakdown is a cause of child poverty. By trying to deal with breakdown, we are dealing with a severe cause of child poverty.

[Helen Goodman]

If the hon. Gentleman would pause for a second, he must surely understand that giving people an extra £200 a year is not likely to enable them to continue their marriages when they are under stress. It does not make sense. For £4 a week, the couple could not even have a pint of beer together. The whole thing is absurd—

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman says that, but the policy is not well targeted. The transferable marriage tax allowance will help just one third of married couples. If we scrapped this allowance and had a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2 million, we could have a tax cut of £100 for 24 million people.

This allowance will go to a third of married couples, and 85% of the benefit will go to men, not to women. Only one in six families with children will get it, and families will only get it if they have only one earner in the family. My test for whether or not this is a good policy is a conversation I had with a constituent of mine recently. She is a shop worker in a supermarket and works 16 hours a week. She has two school-age children. Her husband is not working, because he had an industrial injury. He is on employment and support allowance which, under this Government, will come to an end after 365 days. I simply do not know how a family of four can be expected to live on 16 hours at minimum wage and two lots of child benefit. She cannot. She will lose her tax credits, because she cannot get a shift to increase her hours to 24 a week. Instead of dealing with people like that, who are doing the most responsible things and struggling against all the odds, we have this totally mis-targeted transferable allowance proposal. The Chancellor does not agree with it and the Prime Minister does not agree with it, so why are they doing it? They have made it absolutely clear, in all discussions, that this is about seeing off the Tory right.

I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) is not in the Chamber. He had three articles on this subject in the newspapers this morning. The one in The Times is headlined, “Davis the kingmaker plots the next leadership challenge”. He wrote an article for the Daily Mail online promoting large-scale new breaks for married couples and making many of the points we have heard repeated by less elevated hon. Members this afternoon. Let us look at the response the article received from the public; they are not Guardianistas, but people reading the Daily Mail:

“No…I do not want my taxes going to ‘stay at home’ (eg gym/lunch/shopping) women. I want them to go to help vulnerable, disadvantaged people, not the ‘I’ll park my 4x4 on the pavement even if it inconveniences other people’ bunch. Bad idea.”

Another comment reads:

“This is ridiculous. Surely tax should be calculated on household income rather than basing this on a wife staying at home…some people are carers for the elderly, some are in full time education - just focusing on stay-at-home mums is very unfair.”

Then there is this:

“Thanks to this government telling us what we must believe and what we must not believe…This whole article is politically and socially incorrect and out of date.”

I do not think that this proposal will deliver the political benefits that Government Members are hoping for. It certainly will not deliver the social and economic benefit.

When I was first elected to this House, I sat on the Finance Bill Public Bill Committee with the Exchequer Secretary, the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Gauke). Throughout the Committee’s proceedings he told us, on many issues, what Mrs Gauke thought. I hope we will hear what Mrs Gauke thinks this afternoon.

[Andrew Selous]

I speak as the chair of the all-party group on strengthening couple relationships. Family stability lies at the heart of this debate, and I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) say that she is a supporter of marriage.

This proposal is one of a range Government policies. The Government have put £30 million into strengthening relationship support. For the first time ever, the Department for Work and Pensions is conducting a family stability review. The good news is that family stability is increasing and strengthening, by a bit in the most recent figures. The scariest statistic in this whole area is that by the time children born today are 15, roughly half will see their parents separate. That saddens me hugely. My own parents divorced and I am very much less than a perfect husband myself—none of us is perfect. We all bring our baggage and personal experiences to these issues, so I understand the emotion on both sides of the House. We need to speak with care and moderation. When I look at the pain experienced by the children of friends of mine who are going through divorce, there is something that makes me want to try to do everything possible to increase family stability and reduce family breakdown.

I will not regale hon. Members with many figures, but I will mention the UK’s biggest household study, “Understanding Society, the UK household longitudinal study” by the university of Essex. Most academics and researchers in this area respect it as one of the most authoritative studies. It shows us that 93% of 13 to 15-year-olds whose parents are still together are living with parents who are married. I am not making that up or making a judgment on anyone; I am merely presenting the House with the facts. There may be many reasons for that, and I accept that there are cause and effect arguments both ways. I accept absolutely that poverty is a cause of breakdown, but I also accept that strong families are a bulwark against poverty.

We should use every tool in the box to try to strengthen family life for everyone, whatever relationship they are in at the moment. We need to care deeply about the 38% of constituents of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck). I want to strengthen family life for everyone. Some of the relationship support money that the Government have put forward will be for her constituents. The work we are doing on the family stability review will be for her constituents. I wish these debates did not become quite so heated, because I can assure her that Government Members who support this measure are for everyone—we are for all her constituents as well. We will defend the measures for everyone in the tax and benefit system—child benefit and child tax credits—because we recognise the important part that marriage plays in family stability. I do not want Opposition Members to think that this is a divisive policy. We are bringing this forward as part of a suite of measures to try to do deal with an epidemic of family breakdown in this country and because we want to do something to promote family stability.

As we look at other countries, we see that this is not an outlandish or an unusual thing to do. In fact, the UK is the odd country out in the OECD. Across OECD countries, Mexico is the only other large economy not to have any recognition of marriage in the tax and benefit system. We have tax benefits for all sorts of policies. We have tax benefits for Christmas parties. Just because we favour a firm providing for Christmas parties does not mean that we are against Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus who might not choose to celebrate. It is just something we recognise. We have tax policies that support people parking their bicycles at work. Just because we favour people bicycling to work does not mean that we are against people who come to work in cars or scooters, or who walk, or take the train or the bus. We need to get out of the mentality that, because we are introducing a tax break for an institution we know is good for family stability, we are being in any way divisive.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about family breakdown. Has he made an estimate of how many families will break down because of the bedroom tax, which is an awful policy? Could this money be used to scrap it?

[Andrew Selous]

There is relatively good news on the under-occupancy penalty. More families have been able to move, with nearly 200,000 one and two-bedroom properties available for families to move into. I have seen families who are better off because they are paying lower rent and lower heating bills, or are nearer a bus stop or a sick or disabled relative. We must remember the 1.7 million people on social housing waiting lists and the 300,000 people who are very overcrowded.

The general point the hon. Gentleman makes is of course important. There are many stresses on families today. The Government are cognisant of that fact and are introducing a whole suite of policies—freezing council tax and fuel duty, increasing the personal allowance and increasing the minimum wage—to try to make life easier for people. The good news on jobs and growth will also make things easier. We should not seek to divide people. As has already been said today, we know that over half of lone parents believe strongly that there should be both a mother and a father involved in bringing up children. That is something we need to remember as well.

I strongly support what the Government are doing. The sum can always be increased when the public finances allow it—at present, the Chancellor is playing with a limited amount of money—and we are returning to a policy that was well supported until 2000 and is common among OECD countries. I ask Members to focus on the widespread extent of family breakdown in our country, and to see this as one important policy for increasing the family stability which we know is so important to children.