Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Mark Lazarowicz

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

We have a much better suggestion as to how the money that has been allocated to the marriage tax allowance can be used to support millions of taxpayers up and down the country, including families with children. So what about those families with children who are hoping in vain for any sign of support from this Government whose tax and benefit changes will result in households being, on average, £974 a year worse off by 2015 than they were in 2010? The Exchequer Secretary, who is in his place, has conceded that of Britain’s 7.8 million families with children, just 1.4 million will benefit from this policy. Yes, that is right—one in six families with children will gain from this marriage tax allowance. To put it another way, five in six families with children will not get a penny from this Government’s flagship policy to support them.

The policy does nothing for widows, widowers, lone parents, long-term co-habiting couples, the 300,000 children living with grandparents or kinship carers or for the spouse who has left their partner for good reason, perhaps because of domestic abuse. It will not help the wife who has been left to bring up the kids after the husband has run off with another woman. If her husband chooses to marry that other woman, who have the Government decided will get the reward within the tax system? It is him.

How much will the allowance be worth for those lucky married couples who will be eligible? Just how much value are Ministers putting on the role of marriage in our society? Yes, for the one in three couples who will benefit, it could be worth up to £200 a year, almost £3.85 a week. To put that into language that people on the Labour Benches might understand—that is just over one pint of beer or a one-off peak game of bingo a week! Who does the Government expect to reap the benefits from this largesse? Let us take a look at their own assessment of the equality impact, which clearly states that while

“couples will benefit as a unit...the majority...of individual gainers will be male.”

But it is not just any old majority. The Government’s own assessment indicates that a staggering 84% of individual gainers will be male.

Before last year's autumn statement, we knew that the net impact of this Chancellor’s tax and benefit changes since 2010 would hit women three times harder than men, not least as a result of his decision to give a £3 billion tax cut to the top 1% of earners in this country, 85% of whom just happen to be men. As a result of the autumn statement 2013, in which the marriage tax allowance was confirmed, that appalling record has worsened even further, such that the Chancellor’s tax and benefit strategy is now hitting women a staggering four times harder than men, raising a net £3.047 billion from men, and £11.628 billion, or 79%, from women—[Interruption.] I hear the word scandalous uttered from a sedentary position, and I quite agree.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for making such powerful points. When these points are put to the Government, they always say that the financial circumstances are such that there must be cutbacks somewhere. Is it not ironic that the Government are putting forward a policy that is so badly thought out that if anyone were asked to choose a priority for public spending, this would not be it? Should we not be taking real measures to tackle problems such as the bedroom tax and the changes in universal credit, all of which will cause much more damage than any benefit that this will bring about?

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I appeal for shorter interventions. We have time, but Members cannot make a speech as an intervention.

Finance Bill

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Mark Lazarowicz

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

I was talking about the situation at RBS, which was caused by a total administrative meltdown and computer failure; it had nothing to do with regulation. On the subject of regulation, Conservative Members called for less regulation. Politicians on both sides of the House need to consider where we go from here.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Whatever people say about the banks’ responsibility for things that happened in the past, there can be no doubt that what has happened at RBS in the past few days is the responsibility of people running the bank now and of those responsible for the financial sector now, who include the Government.

It is not just those on low incomes who suffer from the damage caused by the difficulties at RBS, which obviously is trying its best to resolve them. Businesses in my constituency have contacted me saying that if the problem is not resolved immediately, they face closure. The Government need to take that issue seriously, but clearly they are not.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely agree with those sentiments. When discussing the impact that the total administrative failure at RBS had had, particularly on those on low wages but also, as my hon. Friend has just said, on small businesses, I was shocked and taken aback at the political opportunism involved in jumping up and raising a question about regulation, which is entirely irrelevant to the matter that I was discussing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful intervention and reminds me particularly of my own region, the north-east, where too many people lost out on opportunities in the 1980s and never quite recovered from the experience. When I talk to young people today, I find that some of the brightest are coming out of school and choosing not to go to university or college but instead to try desperately to find whatever work opportunities might be available to them because, apart from the fact that they are put off by the tuition fees, they are so worried that if they did step on the ladder and go to university they would come out at the end to find there were still no opportunities. There is a deep sense of anxiety among young people that the Government need to be seriously aware of.

That is what is so concerning about the scrapping of the future jobs fund, which was not only providing real opportunities for young people and breaking the cycles of lack of opportunity, but helping businesses to open up and take on young people in particular. The Government replaced it with the work experience scheme, which they eventually rolled out last year and which offers only eight-week, unpaid placements. There is nothing to say that that is not valuable in itself, but it is simply not doing enough for enough young people. It is also available only for people under 21, so it does not cover unemployed people who have left further or higher education. Again, that compounds some of the anxieties that young people are expressing to me when they say that if they go on to college or university they will be no better offer at the end and they will instead be saddled with a lifetime of debt.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

It is worth remembering, is it not, that this younger age group, who will no longer be getting jobs under the future jobs fund, but only its successor, will also be one of the main targets of the Government’s cuts in welfare benefits?