Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Debate between Angela Eagle and Helen Goodman

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

That point was made to me by the Minister and his officials when we discussed the Bill, and my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that, because we are making changes in respect of the overseas territories, we need to make changes in respect of the Crown dependencies.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

My hon. Friend is making an extremely good speech. Does she agree that the time for secrecy in all these jurisdictions is now over? We need transparency so that we can minimise the abuse—whether tax evasion, tax avoidance, or the laundering of criminal money—that is becoming more and more of a feature in these jurisdictions. Does my hon. Friend agree that once we have our own house in order, we can then campaign internationally to close down all tax havens?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend has succinctly made my whole case for me. She is absolutely right. Those people who think that the situation in the Crown dependencies is not as serious as that in the British overseas territories need only to remember the 957 helicopters that were registered on the Isle of Man to avoid VAT.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Angela Eagle and Helen Goodman

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

I do not think it does, because it leaves open the possibility of the Government’s going back to the drawing board and making a further new arrangement. As I say, for us now, when we have not yet embarked on the process and we do not know what the deals will be and what is going to be offered, it is extremely difficult for us to foresee.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many of the other 27 countries will be going to their Parliaments for approval with respect to their approach to these negotiations, so that it would surely strengthen our Government’s hands if they involved themselves in a process that could through this Parliament maximise the support coming on all sides for our Government’s approach? Why is that not seen as a strength?

[Helen Goodman]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. We know that Angela Merkel has to get a parliamentary mandate for how she conducts herself in all her negotiations in the European Union. Some of us have tried over the years to improve the quality of our European scrutiny, but it seems that we are focusing it now only on the moment when we are about to leave.

Finance Bill

Debate between Angela Eagle and Helen Goodman

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

The Minister shakes his head. They clearly do not know the answer.

The Conservative-Liberal coalition cannot agree on its environmental policy either, which is presumably why, rather than acting on environmental taxes, we now have yet another commission to look into the climate change levy. Once again, therefore, a potentially progressive measure is being put on the backburner. We do not know when it will happen. We do not know when we will see progress on it.

Many hon. Members have spoken about the unfairness of VAT. The Government claim that they had no choice, but of course they had a choice, and they have made it. Their choice has been to change the national insurance regime and replace the increase in national insurance with an increase in VAT. However, one of the things that the Government will not admit is that VAT is also a tax on jobs. VAT also drives a wedge between the cost on employers for the goods and service that employees buy, and what they pay for them, so the notion that we can have an increase in VAT without seeing an impact on the number of jobs in the economy is yet another fantasy.

The Government have not explained what they are doing about the lower rate of VAT, on essentials, and many Opposition Members would like some clarification on that.

The third and final issue that I would like to discuss is fairness in the income tax and benefits system. The Liberal Democrats say that raising the personal allowance is their major attempt to be fair to poor people. The attempt is being made, but it has not produced the upshot that the Liberal Democrats are looking for. Rather, it has failed, because they have not taken account of the interaction with the tax credit reductions and the cuts in welfare benefits.

The distribution figures on page 66 of the Red Book purport to show what the position in the Budget is. However, a day or so later, we all discovered that chart A2, entitled “Impact of all measures as a per cent of net income by income distribution”, in fact included not just the measures taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in announcing his June Budget, but the measures taken previously by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West, which were jumbled up with them. When those figures were stripped out and separated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, we could see that the distributional impacts were totally different. Whereas my right hon. Friend’s Budget took less than 0.5% from the poorest and almost 7% from the richest, the June Budget took 2.5% from the poorest and 0.5% from the richest, so the claim of fairness is completely fraudulent.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Has my hon. Friend also noticed that, mysteriously, the tables in the Red Book to which she has referred stop in the financial year 2012-13, which as it happens—I am sure that this is purely coincidental—is just before all the cuts in the public sector happen?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The major cuts in benefits—in housing benefits, tax credits and benefits affecting families—come in the two final years.

The other thing that Members on the Government Benches simply do not seem to understand is the impact of the changes on work incentives. The Government say that they want to promote a climate for growth. One would think that if they were trying to promote a climate for growth, they would improve work incentives. The Government are about to test to destruction the theory that simply cutting benefits will improve work incentives. That is illustrated in another table in the Red Book—the Red Book is, I have to say, a rather useful document—which shows the changes in the marginal deduction rates. That table shows that almost 100,000 people will see increases in their marginal deduction rates as a result of the Budget—that is, a worsening of their incentives.

The level of transparency in the document is totally inadequate, and it has been extremely difficult to get information out of the Government. However, in conclusion, I would like to ask: what is the balance of risk that the British economy now faces? Is it spiralling inflation or is it deflation? The choice that the Government have made is far more likely to push us towards deflation.

Before he sat down, the Chancellor or the Exchequer said that the richest should pay the most and that the vulnerable would be protected in the Budget. The Government have failed every test. They have not been fair, they have not promoted growth, they are raising far too much money and this Budget will fail the nation.