Oral Answers to Questions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I discussed this issue with my right hon. Friend when she was the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. I would be delighted to engage with her further ahead of the Budget to tap into any sensible ideas she has in this important area.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

T6. According to the Resolution Foundation, the previous Prime Minister’s unfunded tax cuts cost the economy £30 billion. Will the Chancellor confirm that he will not capitulate to her allies who are calling for the reintroduction of tax cuts for their wealthy cronies in next month’s Budget?

[Jeremy Hunt]

What I can confirm is that there will be no tax cuts funded by borrowing. I can also confirm that those of us on this side of the House, unlike those on the hon. Member’s side, believe in lower taxes.

Digital Pound

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I have a couple of questions about safeguarding. The Minister said in his statement that the Government will not

“have access to digital pound users’ personal data, except…under limited circumstances”.

Can he give me an assurance that those circumstances will not include Government agencies aggressively targeting vulnerable individuals, for whatever reason?

Several hon. Members have mentioned cash. We know that cash can give people financial independence, particularly if they are in a coercive relationship: not having somebody see every single spending decision they make gives them a slight amount of independence. What safeguards on the digital pound will be put in place to ensure that people still have that protection?

[Andrew Griffith]

I thank the hon. Member for those points; her point about safeguards against coercive control in particular is well made. This is where something like a digital pound can have utility: unlike existing banking relationships, but like cash, it is not subject to the caprices of a particular commercial entity that may apply its own policies. I commend our payment services industry—the UK is blessed with a strong, healthy and competitive banking sector—but for the safeguards that the hon. Member seeks, the digital pound would be additive to the current situation.

Non-domicile Tax Status

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who always expresses himself so eloquently. In my constituency, fewer than 100 people are non-domiciled for tax; in the constituency of my neighbour the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), there are fewer than 100 people who are non-domiciled for tax, as there are in Leeds East, too. In fact, in the whole city of Leeds of 800,000 people, relatively few are non-domiciled for tax.

In the constituency we are standing in, 14,600 people—more than 20%—are non-domiciled for tax, according to the House of Commons Library. If any Member wants to intervene and tell me I am wrong, they should feel free. What we do not know is how much the public revenue is losing from those people. My constituents and the people of Leeds would love to know how much tax is being lost just in the Cities of London and Westminster from people utilising the non-dom tax loophole. I would like to know whether it is more than the whole amount that all 70,000 of my constituents pay in tax. That is what this motion is about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) is a modest man. He does not want too much, just to know how much we are losing from the public treasury. He has not moved a motion to ask for the abolition of non-dom status. He may have ambitions in that area, but that is not what we are talking about. He merely wants clarity and transparency, as does everyone on the Opposition Benches. But some people want opaqueness—I sure they are sitting on the Government Benches—as we have heard time and again.

Let us look at what happens with tax in other countries. The Conservative party often lauds the United States of America’s tax system and its attitude to entrepreneurship. Would this loophole happen in the United States of America? Would it happen in Canada, Germany or other jurisdictions? No, it would not. They require people to pay tax after a qualifying period. In the United States of America, that qualifying period is just one day.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Recent research from the Tax Justice Network has shown that the UK leads OECD countries in tax abuse.

[Alex Sobel]

That is a very good point. When Ukraine was first invaded we saw how much Russian money was in this country. In fact, I do not think we have yet resolved that issue fully through Magnitsky and other means.

I will try to keep to the time limit, as more Members would like to speak, so I will finish by saying that I go to schools a lot around the city of Leeds. Many families cannot afford to give their children breakfast. The ending of this loophole would mean that we could give every child in every primary school in this country a free school breakfast. The Prime Minister has aspirations to raise standards, but there is nothing more that he—or we—could do for those children than to give them that free breakfast, paid for by people avoiding tax on their earnings here.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am, as ever, grateful to my right hon. Friend, and he made the same point when I was previously at the Dispatch Box. As he knows, the Bank of England is independent. He asks about quantitative tightening, and I am sure such matters will feature in conversations between the Chancellor and the Governor.

The new taxes will help to pay for the £55 billion of help for households and businesses with their energy bills, in one of the largest support plans in Europe. From April, we will continue the energy price guarantee for a further 12 months at a higher level of £3,000 a year for the average household.

Our support for public services means that, despite needing to find £55 billion in savings and tax rises, we are protecting the amount going into public services in real terms over the five-year period. Overall departmental spending will grow at an average of 3.7% a year over the 2021 spending review period. Departments will be required to find efficiency savings to manage pressures from inflation. After the spending review period, day-to-day spending will continue to grow in real terms, but slower than previously planned at 1% a year in real terms until 2027-28. We are launching an efficiency and savings review, which will include reprioritising lower-value and low-priority programme spending and reviewing the effectiveness of public bodies.

I now turn to our most vital public service, the NHS. The nation stood outside their homes and clapped for NHS workers every Thursday during the pandemic, and we did so because of their sacrifice during the historic pandemic. It is now incumbent on us to help address the issues they face, the workforce shortages and the pressures on the social care sector.

To recruit and retain our dedicated NHS workforce, the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS will publish an independently verified plan for the number of doctors, nurses and other professionals we will need in five, 10 and 15 years’ time.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Will the Minister confirm that the reason why we have such terrible bed-blocking and such terrible staff shortages in care homes and social care is because we cannot recruit from across Europe in the way we did before Brexit?

[John Glen]

I cannot account for what is happening in Scotland, but there are £1.5 billion of Barnett consequentials from the autumn statement. I have been clear with the House that the workforce plan is designed to set out transparently where the gaps are, and obviously it will be for various Government Departments to respond to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I very much welcome this carefully crafted and carefully balanced autumn statement. I welcome the fact that, at its heart, its No. 1 priority is balancing the books. The reason that is so important is shown by chart 19 of the OBR report, if people read it, which shows that debt interest payments as a proportion of Government revenue are at record high levels. As the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), pointed out, our interest payments are heading for being almost as much as is spent on the NHS.

We have to fill that fiscal black hole, and the Chancellor has managed to do it in a way that the Office for Budget Responsibility has said will lead to lower inflation than would otherwise be the case, a shorter, shallower recession than would otherwise be the case and lower unemployment than would otherwise be the case. Those from the Office for Budget Responsibility are coming before us on the Treasury Committee tomorrow, and I look forward to grilling them then.

The Chancellor has also done this in a way that is fair. I notice that the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) welcomed many of the measures. In fact, it is noticeable that virtually none of the Opposition Members has attacked any of the substantial measures in the autumn statement: the pensioner triple lock being continued, we welcome it, they welcome it; benefits being uprated with inflation, we welcome it, they welcome it; and the energy price guarantee, we welcome it, they welcome it. The windfall tax has been a bit controversial at some points, but there we are, and it is there. I do not know how they are planning to vote tomorrow—I do not know if they have said which way they are going to vote—but I would be very surprised if they vote against all these measures that they clearly welcome.

The Opposition have called for more money on the NHS, without explaining how they are going to pay for it—whether they are going to cut spending elsewhere, raise taxes in other places, or borrow more—but I do say this. As I pointed out in one of my interventions, despite the Labour party repeatedly accusing the Conservatives of starving the NHS of money, spending on the NHS is at record high levels not just in cash terms or in real terms adjusted for inflation, but as a percentage of GDP. Never has more of the UK economy been spent on health than now—it is now 10% of GDP. The latest international figures that I have seen—they are from 2019 —show that the UK Government were spending more of their money on health and the NHS than the European average. The Guardian—hardly a Conservative-supporting newspaper, and a doughty defender of the NHS—recently published analysis showing that, as a result of the autumn statement, spending on the NHS between 2010 and 2024 will have increased by 35% in real terms after inflation. That is from The Guardian, and that is to be welcomed.

I will make some substantive points, but I have one more observation about the Labour party. The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), talked in his opening comments about the economic crisis made in Downing Street—a theme of many Opposition interventions—and the Conservatives’ terrible economic track record since coming to power in 2010. He mentioned the mini-Budget and blamed that for the economic crisis. I agree that we have an economic crisis—inflation is at its highest level for 40 years and disposable incomes are falling rapidly—but that is nothing to do with the mini-Budget.

Let me share a little secret with the House: almost nothing in the mini-Budget was actually implemented. Almost all of it has been ditched. It is absolutely true that it did cause turmoil in the bond markets for a few weeks and it pushed up mortgage rates. For those who renewed a fixed-rate mortgage in that period, yes, it would have pushed up the cost. However, just last week, Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, went before the Treasury Committee and both the Chair and I grilled him on whether the mini-Budget had pushed interest rates up higher than they would otherwise be and whether there were any long-term consequences for the economy. He said, “Absolutely not.” He was explicit.

[Carol Monaghan]

rose—

[Anthony Browne]

I will give way to the hon. Member. I do not expect her to agree with me.

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but of course there were long-term consequences. I have been contacted by a number of people who have lost out on mortgage deals, and some of them were first-time buyers who lost out on properties because of the chaos created.

[Anthony Browne]

I agree with the point made. As I said, there was a temporary period of a few weeks when there was a rise in interest rates. Some people renewed mortgages in that time and some people lost mortgages. That is terrible for those people, but there are no ongoing, long-term consequences because virtually none of the mini-Budget was implemented.

Many Opposition Members have referred to the Tories’ economic record since 2010. The fact is, we have had a series of extraordinary economic hurricanes. In 2010, we inherited an economy in recession—by Labour’s own admission, we had run out of money—and the 2008 economic crisis was so profound and deep that it led to the longest, deepest recession since the second world war. It took about a decade for the structural changes to the economy to play through, and gradually we returned to growth. Since then, as many have mentioned, we have had the once-in-100-years pandemic followed back to back by the once-in-50-years energy price shock.

During the pandemic, we spent £400 billion supporting households and businesses. I do not think Labour has complained about that too much, but that has led to higher national debt. The pandemic also led to problems with global supply chains that hit countries across the world. On the energy price shock, we are an energy importer, so inevitably we are poorer as a country and inflation has shot up. The question is this: if you are in a plane in a hurricane, or repeated hurricanes, and the plane gets struck by lightning and the engine catches fire and explodes, do you attack the pilot and ditch them because they happened to be in the pilot’s seat when all that happened or do you judge them on their performance and how they managed to get through those crises?

There are two things. First, this is not a UK crisis at the moment. Inflation has shot up around the world and is at roughly the same level in America and Germany as it is here. The IMF has said that one third of the global economy is going into recession this year. The downturn in Germany is faster than it is here. In America, they are putting up taxes by $800 billion to pay for it all. This is a worldwide phenomenon.

Secondly, as many Opposition Members keep going back to 2010, I have been checking my data—I like data. Between 2010 and 2019—the latest international figures I could find while sitting in the Chamber—the UK’s GDP growth per capita was lower than that of the US and Germany, but higher than that of every other G7 country. It was higher than that of Japan, Canada, France, Italy, and every other major European economy, including Spain. Our economic track record between 2010 and 2019 was better than all those countries, so the Conservative Government have a lot of which to be proud.

I want to make a couple—I see you waving your hand at me, Madam Deputy Speaker—of substantive points. The autumn statement does increase taxes; no Conservative Government like increasing taxes, but it is far better to iron out tax distortions before, or indeed while, raising them. The capital gains tax system, for example, has many distortions and is not indexed with inflation, which it should be. It works in a very perverse way. Inheritance tax, which has effectively been increased because the threshold has been frozen, is riddled with issues. There is a potentially exempt transfer scheme where many people do not pay any inheritance tax at all. We need to get rid of all these exemptions, smooth things out and fix inheritance tax before raising it. I also urge the Government to look at marginal rates of taxation that are more than 50%. Increasing numbers of people are falling into that bracket because of the freezing of the thresholds.

Finally—thank you for your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker—I welcome the protection of capital budgets. In particular, I urge the Government to protect the funding for Cambridge Children’s Hospital.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

We have heard several times today from Conservative Members that the economic climate we are in is a result of covid and the war in Ukraine. Of course, they fail to mention the monumental act of self-harm that is Brexit.

Brexit Britain’s outlook is bleak. Inflation is running riot and wages are stagnating. Martin Lewis, the money saving expert, has said that there will be an “energy bills catastrophe” this winter. The IFS has said that despite the support for energy bills, median households will face a £900 increase in their bills compared with this time last year. People are worried. They are not putting on their heating. I have been contacted by an 82-year-old constituent. He lives on his own, and he is now going to bed early wearing additional layers of clothes, instead of turning on the heating, but that has additional impacts.

I have noticed a worrying trend in the past couple of weeks that I have never seen in my seven and a half years as an MP. People are getting in touch because of mould in their houses. That mould is not because the houses are damp and have various problems. It is because people are not putting on the heat or opening the windows to ventilate their homes. We are reminded, of course, of little Awaab Ishak who died due to prolonged exposure to mould. Unfortunately, I do not think he will be the last. That has an impact on the NHS and costs society more. People need to be able to put their heating on, to dry out their houses and to ventilate them.

For my constituents who are worried about energy bills, it is particularly difficult for them when they look out of their windows and see the turbines generating the energy that Scotland uses, but Scotland’s renewables suppliers have been hammered by the grid connection charges. Norway can pay £1.36 per megawatt-hour to feed into our grid and France just 17p, while Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands pay nothing. However, Scotland’s renewables sector is punished with grid connection charges of £7.36 per megawatt-hour, despite those turbines being right next to the people having to pay these extreme bills.

As well as energy costs, food costs are of course rising—at the fastest rate for 45 years—with the costs of basics such as milk, cheese and eggs surging. It is reckoned that food inflation is now at 16.2%. The Trussell Trust has experienced its busiest ever April-to-September period with a 34% increase, and 40,000 food parcels for children.

We have heard a number of Conservative Members talk about the strivers and the grafters. Are the strivers and the grafters the 2,900 members of the armed forces who are having to claim universal credit? Are the strivers and the grafters our veterans? There are 56,000 veterans—those are figures we have, but it is reckoned there are far more, because the information is not captured—who are collecting universal credit. Are we going to label them as layabouts? That is problematic.

Benefits are not rising at the same rate as inflation. The Chancellor’s commitment to uprate benefits by 10.1% next year is a step in the right direction, but what are people doing this winter? How are they heating their homes, and how are they feeding themselves? They need the money now. I have also heard comments such as, “People need to get better at managing their budgets.” Let us be clear: when someone is on a very tight budget and knows where every penny is coming from and where every penny is going, they are extremely good at managing their budget. If Members want to see how to manage a budget, they should speak to the most disadvantaged in their communities, because they know how it is done.

There are things this Government should be looking at. They should be looking at the Scottish Government’s Scottish child payment of £25 a week for every eligible child up to the age of 16. They should decouple gas and electricity supplies so that the prices are reduced, especially for those who can see the energy being generated. We need to tax these energy companies’ profits properly. It is not right that they are generating huge profits off the back of the most vulnerable in our communities. The Government also need to look at freezing rents for those in the private sector, as has been done in Scotland.

More and more people in Scotland are looking at the differences between these two nations; increasingly they are saying that there is only one future for them, and it is not in this Union.

Economic Update

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

One of the first lessons I was told as Chancellor is never to speculate on why markets do what they do and I am not going to break that today.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The Chancellor has repeatedly refused to answer questions about uprating of benefits, but with the Resolution Foundation briefing last week that it expects 2 million more people to be pushed into absolute poverty, can he guarantee to the House that any attempt to balance the books, to steady the ship, or whatever other expression we are going to use, is not going to be made at the expense of those already struggling?

[Jeremy Hunt]

As I have said—I am happy to repeat it—all these decisions will be taken through the prism of the impact on the most vulnerable people in society.

Downing Street Christmas Parties Investigation

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

That is exactly what the investigation seeks to uncover. If there was a gathering, it seeks to uncover the nature of that gathering.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The issue is not the however many gatherings. The Prime Minister has made a litany of errors, any one of which would have caused a decent Prime Minister to resign, whether it is the illegal Prorogation, the Barnard Castle incident, the comment on letting bodies “pile high in their thousands,” the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that has cost lives or the scandal surrounding Owen Paterson. Is it not time for the Prime Minister to go back to watching “Peppa Pig” and leave the grown-ups to lead the country?

[Michael Ellis]

As the hon. Lady knows, the Prime Minister has been given repeated categorical assurances about the party that has been alleged. The reality of the matter is that the allegations are just that. She makes those allegations and the nature of the investigation is to discover whether any gathering was in breach of any regulations. It has been made clear that, if there was a breach of any regulations, disciplinary action will follow, but these are gatherings that occur on a regular basis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)]

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

Apprenticeship Levy

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this afternoon’s debate, Ms Nokes, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing it. It is a strange one for a Scottish MP to be speaking in, because it is one of those that crosses the boundary between reserved and devolved matters—that point was clearly made by the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts). There are challenges for us in Scotland as well. In Scotland, our businesses must pay the apprenticeship levy, but they are not tied to the same restrictions in terms of how apprenticeships are delivered.

A strong economy with growing, competitive and innovative businesses is essential to supporting jobs and our quality of life. To achieve that, we must prioritise education, from early years into employment. There is a real need for young people to train for work, be that through further education, higher education or apprenticeships. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) set out clearly the importance of that education process, whatever it may be. The best situation is one where all the options have equal status. The hon. Member for Gloucester talked about the importance and value of apprenticeships, with which all of us here this afternoon would agree. Unfortunately, in many circles, apprenticeships are still considered second best.

The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) talked about the possibility of a further education UCAS option, which deserves further investigation. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) talked about the great work done in Staffordshire University with apprenticeship programmes. Although many still prioritise the number of young people accessing university, other life choices are not given the place they deserve. We should not be talking about the route that our young people take, but about their positive destinations. The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) talked about social mobility, which sums it up nicely. How do we make our young people mobile? Not everyone takes the same route.

It is important that we recognise what apprenticeships should and should not be. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) talked about some responsible employers and the excellent programmes they provide for the apprentices in their care, but that is not always the case. Apprenticeships should not be used by employers to attract funding without producing positive outcomes. They should not be used to plug temporary employment gaps. They should be used when the apprenticeship can lead to a full-time position, and apprenticeships should always be matched to skill shortages.

Since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, we have seen a drop in the number of apprenticeships in England. The hon. Member for Gloucester talked about the levy as a tax. One third of businesses reportedly view the apprenticeship levy primarily as a tax, without training benefits. The British Retail Consortium has said that the levy is “failing retailers”. It appears that it is a clumsy tool that is not doing everything it should be.

Despite that, we in Scotland are making excellent progress to ensure that young people have the skills that they need to exploit current and future opportunities. We have had discussions with key stakeholders and have established a national retraining partnership, with the aim of helping workers and businesses prepare for future changes in their markets by enabling the workforce to upskill and retrain where necessary. The commitment to skills is ambitious, building on a number of initiatives already in place to boost employment and create positive pathways for young people.

Of course, the UK Government are stepping on a devolved responsibility here. We pay the levy, but the training is devolved. The Scottish Government have worked with employers to mitigate this unwelcome tax. They have extended the £10 million flexible workforce development fund to continue to support investment in skills and training. Employers have been encouraged to link with colleges to learn more about the opportunities available to them. All that work is paying dividends. The Scottish Government have exceeded their apprenticeship target every year for the last eight years. Skills Development Scotland statistics also show that the Scottish Government’s commitment to increasing apprenticeships to 30,000 by 2020 is on course to be met.

The right hon. Member for Harlow talked about degree apprenticeships. The apprenticeships currently on offer in Scotland include, this year, around 900 graduate opportunities, up from only 278 in the previous year. Massive steps have been made in that area. Some 93% of Scotland’s young people now go on to positive destinations—that is the highest of anywhere in the UK. We will continue to enhance the apprenticeship opportunities available to provide the right balance of skills to meet the needs of employers, including prioritising higher skilled apprenticeships and STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—occupations.

As an example, an Edinburgh school is teaching construction skills. The infrastructure company Balfour Beatty is co-funding that project with the University of Edinburgh. It aims to inspire the next generation of specialists in engineering and the built environment. Pupils at Castlebrae Community High School in Craigmillar take subjects including maths, science and technology, while learning about the latest practices demanded in construction. The pupils acquire real-world, practical experience and employability skills as part of the course, which brings industry professionals into the classroom to support teachers.

Young people have to know that there is no wrong path, and #NoWrongPath trends every year roundabout exam results time, to show young people that there are many routes into employment and on to a positive destination. We all need to ask ourselves whether we would be happy for our own children to take each of the different routes into employment. If the answer is no, we have to question why we are here.

HMRC Tax Office: Cumbernauld

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. At the end of the day, this programme may well end up being absolutely self-defeating for HMRC, and it is the Government’s cost-cutting agenda that has been the driver behind it. They need to take ownership of what is going on.

First and foremost, the Government need to take ownership of the implications of these plans for the dedicated workforce who have built up considerable expertise over many years in Cumbernauld. The stark truth is that jobs will be lost. Written parliamentary answers confirm that the total capacity of the new Glasgow financial district site is considerably smaller than the number of staff at the sites that have been closed to make way for it. In fact, we are talking about a maximum capacity of 3,000 at the new site compared with a full-time equivalent workforce of 4,700 at the sites that are earmarked for closure.

It seems that HMRC is relying on the fact that many workers will be unable to make the transition because of personal circumstances. Remarkably, it has managed to pick a site in a part of Glasgow city centre that is unusually difficult for people in Cumbernauld to get to within HMRC’s one-hour reasonable daily travel limit if they are using public transport. Those workers who do make the move will be out of pocket. It is true that some reasonable daily travel costs will be met initially, but that will not last for ever. It also refers to the cheapest option, which I know from speaking to staff will be totally impossible for some of them. We have to remember that 57% of staff earn less than £20,000 a year. If, as has been estimated, staff will have to spend, on average, an additional £17 each week on travel to work, that will represent 5% of their take-home pay. It is a similar story with childcare costs, because 55% of staff have childcare or other caring responsibilities. Additional travel time will see care costs rise by an average of £40 a week, which is 12% of an employee’s take-home pay. After decades of service, those workers deserve better.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case, but this is not just about the finances. At a time when we are so concerned about climate change and are looking to decarbonise where we can, the thought of additional travel to a place of work should be a worry to us all.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend.

Secondly, the Government must take responsibility for the consequences of the proposed closure on the town of Cumbernauld. It is fair to say that HMRC and the Government have failed to show one iota of interest in the implications for the town and community. Earlier written answers sought to assure us that all the appropriate impact assessments would be carried out, but they proved to be hollow assurances as the economic impact assessment was never commissioned.

Thankfully, after a little encouragement, North Lanarkshire Council worked effectively with PCS to do what the Government should have done and looked at the economic consequences for Cumbernauld. The assessment confirmed what we all could guess: local shops and businesses benefit greatly from the footfall of tax office workers spending money in the town centre adjacent to the tax office building. A conservative estimate suggests an annual loss of almost £1 million at supermarkets, local cafés and food outlets alone. That significant loss of footfall will have a severe impact on the local economy.

However, absolutely none of that has played any role in HMRC’s plans, and it has shown no interest in the impacts. If HMRC will not listen, the Government should. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) mentioned earlier, the Government’s towns strategy, published last November, said that

“for too long, the benefits of this unprecedented growth in many of our world-renowned cities has not been felt as strongly by communities in our towns and rural areas… Successive Governments have often focused on cities as engines of economic growth.”

I largely agree with that, but a focus on rebalancing is exactly why the tax office ended up in Cumbernauld in the first place. During the 1960s and 1970s, there was cross-party consensus not only on dispersing existing civil service jobs from London to other parts of the UK, but on the creation of new positions. It was against that background that Cumbernauld was selected for a new accounts office in 1976, albeit that the opening was later postponed until 1978. The office was expected to have a hugely positive impact on employment in the town, with most of the jobs being new and recruited locally, and that is exactly what happened. Everyone in Cumbernauld knows somebody employed in the tax office. What a tragedy it is that, 40 years on, UK Ministers are standing idly by as HMRC runs roughshod over such policy goals.

In reality, the “Building our future” programme seems to be doing the opposite of the Government’s stated aim of renewing our towns. New offices are being located in prime inner-city locations in places where I have absolutely no doubt that the offices would have been filled by private sector tenants in any event. That is not the case in Cumbernauld where the site owner, Mapeley, is protecting its position in case HMRC fails to renew the lease, but it is not protecting the position by seeking new people for the lease and creating new jobs, but by knocking it down and seeking planning permission to build houses on the site. New housing is needed, but not at the expense of around 1,200 good-quality jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I am unable to comment on what the review will conclude. We can certainly look at whether there may be changes that HMRC would take rapidly thereafter. It possesses the capacity to do so quite quickly if necessary, as does Government. We will have to review that moment when it comes.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

19. Seven needless deaths; seven families tragically left to deal with the consequences, and yet companies such as AML that have promoted the schemes are getting away scot-free. AML and its director, Doug Barrowman, appear to have moved away with no consequences whatever. In fact, they are boasting that HMRC is not pursuing them for any assets or unpaid taxes. Will the Minister detail the efforts that are being taken against such companies, which have caused so much pain and tragedy?

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to focus on the activity of the promoters. They are extremely ingenious in operating within the framework of law, but doing some very nasty and duplicitous things. They often operate offshore and it is extremely difficult to close them down when they are constantly mutating from one company to another. I assure hon. Members that we are looking at the problem extremely closely, and I hope to return to the House at some point fairly soon with some thoughts.