Budget Resolutions

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Jess Phillips

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am very sorry that those on the Front Bench do not like hearing this, but there is no “get out of jail free” card through realigning with the European Union. It looks as though the European Union wants to charge us money for the Brexit reset. In fact, the expenditure line—what we make in net contributions to the EU since we left—has absolutely crashed. We are now contributing very little, and that money is available to the Exchequer. If we rejoined the European Union, we would have to find another £20 billion for contributions to the European budget—no thank you very much.

The real point about a Budget is that it is when the country hears from the Government about their judgment. It is not about lots of little schemes—the £400 million extra being raised from council tax does not even cover the margin for error on annual public spending each year. It is almost irrelevant; it is a window dressing about punishing the rich. Incidentally, if we go on every Budget making sure that the top deciles contribute far more than the bottom deciles, we will finish up with a more and more punitive tax and benefit system that will be more and more damaging for economic growth.

The question is: did the Government get the judgment right last time? The answer was obviously no; they said that those tax increases would be a one-off but they have had to come back for much more, because the effect of their measures has damaged economic growth. What we are missing from this conversation is a real discussion about the long-term growth of public expenditure and what we can afford. The “Fiscal risks and sustainability” report, produced by the OBR in the summer, was a sort of two-day wonder in the public debate. We then went back to discussing the very narrow question of how much headroom we should have in just one year—as though aiming for that little hole is the answer for the long-term economic viability of this country. What a ludicrous way to run a country! It is about as un-strategic as you can get.

As a consequence, we are living in a fool’s paradise. The Government have repeated their errors. They are punishing wealth creators and padding out the welfare system, which is decreasing incentives for work. The tragedy of the nearly 1 million young people who are not in education, employment or training is getting bigger. The national minimum wage will reduce opportunities for young people, because it will no longer be worth pubs and hotels recruiting young people, given that there is no cost advantage to recruiting students as opposed to full-timers. Perhaps that is what the Government want, but it will not be good for employment for young people, nor good for growth and enterprise.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)]

As the mother of somebody in that age bracket who works in a pub, I just wanted to stand up on his behalf and say thank you to the Chancellor.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I will not be thanking the Chancellor and her Government on behalf of all the young people who thought they would be able to get jobs in the hospitality sector, but now will not get them. Students will not get those part-time jobs to help to pay off their student loans. These issues have to be balanced—[Interruption.] I am not going to give way again.

The point is that this Budget will prove, once again, that higher spending, higher borrowing—the debt is still going up, by the way—and higher taxes are not a route to growth, prosperity, employment, happiness and security. This is a Government proving, once again, that socialism does not work. We are heading for a terrible reckoning on the basis of the long-term fiscal forecasts produced by the OBR. There is going to be a crunch.

Last year the Government sent the gilt rates rising. This year the gilt rates are way above the level that was provoked by the Liz Truss Budget. These two Budgets are much worse than the Liz Truss episode, and they have raised—[Interruption.] The Liz Truss episode was short-lived; this is permanent. It is Government policy to inflict higher borrowing costs, higher debt, higher taxation and lower growth on our country—[Interruption.] I would be grateful if those on the Front Bench could contain themselves. This Government have made permanent a fiscal and growth crisis, and we will rue the day that we elected them, because once again they will prove that Labour Governments always trash the economy permanently.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Jess Phillips

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

That does reassure me to some degree. My concern is that the complainant, as is always the case in such instances, has to do an awful lot of work. We need to make sure that they are supported all the way through the process. There is also the issue of equality of arms. As Members, we are much more powerful than most people and we are much more frightening than most people. [Interruption.] I am, that’s right! I would like to think that I can recognise that and employ it appropriately, but I still worry that there will be a power imbalance. The working group has done everything it possibly could do on a matter that is very difficult, and I imagine there were lots of voices on both sides. I will finish by just saying that I totally commend the report—

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

[Jess Phillips]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is loquacious today.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because I think she rightly points to the necessity that, as employers, MPs, because we are public figures, must be held to a much higher standard than we would expect of an ordinary small businessman and employer outside. That is because we are accountable, we are expected to be accountable and we are expected to be leaders and example-setters. I think, however, that the report addresses that and her concerns, because there will be HR support from outside the Members’ office for the staff of Members of Parliament, so they get the support and counselling they need to take a complaint against their employer in a way that has not existed before. I think it is a very important reform.

[Jess Phillips]

I totally recognise that and I am very happy with the progress that has been made. I personally felt listened to throughout the process, and I thank the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader for that. The system will need to be tested as we go through it. Lots of people have talked about review. It will be strength-tested by those who go through it. We have to ensure that, when the first case comes and things have not been as they should have been, we do not close ranks with each other. I will always commit to being the person who closes ranks with the people on the outside. I commend the report.

Finance Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Jess Phillips

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

Our problem with the EU’s VAT directives is that they are a one-way street. Once the EU has adopted powers to regulate a particular tax, that power cannot be taken back by the member states. We are then left begging the EU as to whether we can set the tax rates for which the British people vote, as opposed to setting them ourselves. It strikes me as ironic that the Scottish National party wants independence from the United Kingdom in order to do its own thing, but it is happy to go on giving up more and more power to the European Union, so it will have even less freedom and less voice than it has in the UK.

The problem is that once VAT rates on any product are set above 5%, the European Union does not allow any member state to reduce them to below 5% again. We therefore have an anomaly whereby there is a zero VAT rate on sanitary products in the Republic of Ireland because it has never charged VAT on them. Had we started from the principle of charging no VAT on sanitary products, we would be in the same position as Ireland, but because we already charged it we cannot take it away. What a mess.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman recognises all the good things the European Union has done for women. As somebody who has had to suffer periods and pay this unfair tax, I was also afforded maternity rights that I would never have had if it had not been for some of the pressures exerted by the European Union.

[Mr Jenkin]

I certainly acknowledge that what has happened in other member states has influenced what has happened in this country, but the hon. Lady enjoys no rights in this country that we could not have afforded ourselves through our own political processes. The question of the possibility of leaving the European Union is about taking back control over those policies, not deciding them in a different way from that which she would like. Long may we continue to agree on the importance of equal rights for women in as many areas as possible—in fact, in every area that we can possibly legislate on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

I am not going to give way again.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) on tabling new clause 7. She may be a little surprised at how many Members support it, but, sadly, we have to have this debate not because it is the British Government’s policy to levy the tax, but because it is the EU’s policy to do so. That is a fundamental freedom and control that we should bring back to this House in the future.

[Jess Phillips]

I feel the need to make all sorts of declarations of interest in this debate, having used sanitary products pretty much all my life.

I wish to pay credit to a number of women who have brought this subject to the House over the years. Without women in this place, I am certain that this issue would never have been raised, although I am delighted that so many men interested in Europe are in the Chamber to talk about it. Dawn Primarolo, a working-class woman brave enough to dare to speak up in Parliament about the taboo subject of women’s periods back in the year 2000, should be commended.

Today, when such topics are far easier for us to discuss, I have already received a number of sideways glances from colleagues around the estate on speaking about the subject and there is a certain desire among Conservative Members to say the word “products” instead of tampons. I know from speaking to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) today that, at the time, it was considered vulgar and even shameful that Ms Primarolo brought forward the subject. She was brave. Today, our brave woman prize goes to my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff). Regardless of what has been said on the other side of the House, doing nothing achieves nothing.

It is completely ridiculous that women are taxed, even at a 5% rate, for a product which, in my experience, is more than essential. The fact that we still have the tax is probably down in no small part to the fact that most of the people in the House and in our sister Parliaments all across the EU do not have wombs. The reason why we must force the Government to have a conversation with our European partners is that, without force, I fear that they will be too squeamish to talk about women’s periods. But they should not be: every person in the House exists only because their mother had a period. Today, with half term, Parliament has been teeming with children—my own have been on the slides in Portcullis House—who all exist only because their mothers had periods. It is nothing to be scared of, and nor should any man or woman ever feel that we should not talk about periods.

Such a revision in taxation may seem a marginal change, but it would make a huge difference to the women in this country. Having worked in a women’s refuge, I know that the things we had to stock up on the most—because they presented a challenge to the budgets of the women in our care—were nappies, tampons and sanitary towels.