Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

That certainly will happen in future.

Even if they were not criminals, many of Mossack Fonseca’s clients, if not all, had the strong intention of evading or avoiding the taxes that would otherwise have been due from them.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent speech and for bringing this debate to the House. Does he agree that this is a real issue for people in London, particularly in respect of the impact that these shady characters have on our London property market? It is a tragedy that Londoners, who want to remain in London, have to move out because these criminal elements are messing up the international finance system.

[John McDonnell]

That confirms the need for open and public disclosure of beneficiary ownership and beneficiary interests. As my hon. Friend and every London MP knows, speculation on property in this capital city denies many of our constituents a decent roof over their heads.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

9. What fiscal steps the Government are taking to support manufacturing exports.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Damian Hinds)]

Since 2010, we have cut corporation tax from 28% to 20%, which is the joint lowest rate in the G20—we will cut it further to 18% by 2020; we have set the annual investment allowance at its highest ever permanent level, at £200,000; and we have made research and development credits more generous and above the line, available in the early loss-making phase for the first time. In addition, UKTI has announced today enhanced support for exporters.

[Catherine West]

Is the Minister concerned about recent figures showing that the manufacturing sector is back in recession? What does he intend to do about that?

[Damian Hinds]

We have to get behind the manufacturing sector. That is at the heart of this Government’s approach, of the long-term economic plan and of the productivity plan, through giving enhanced access to leading technologies in the catapult centres; the apprenticeships levy; making sure that we build up our skills base by attracting more teachers into the STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths; and a range of other initiatives.

The Economy

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that progressive move, and it gives me a chance to emphasise the fact that yesterday’s data on earnings showed that the lowest earning 10% in our society saw a wage increase of 3.4% over the last 12 months, and that is before these changes have even taken place.

The Opposition motion also mentions child poverty. The best route out of child poverty is for a parent or parents to work. On our watch, the number of children growing up in workless families is at a record low, down almost 500,000 from 16.2% of all children to 11.8%.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Is the Economic Secretary aware that 500,000 children have fallen below the poverty line since 2010? What does she intend to do about that?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady is wrong about that. Since 2010, in terms of relative poverty, some 300,000 fewer children are living in poverty. The Government losing control of public finances and not being able to do anything about that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen for the opportunities for those children. The people who suffer when the country loses control of its public finances are the low-paid, and the people who get turned out of work are the ones who suffer the most—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Hosie]

I think that the creation of every job is welcome for the person who gets it, and I think that the creation of well-paid, permanent and secure jobs is fantastic, as those provide not only the income that families need, but the security with which to build strong and stable communities. Of course I welcome jobs as they are created, but we need to look at every single part of the economy, not simply single metrics—whether they be good or bad. The Government’s record in the round is lamentable.

I mentioned the plan to cut tax credits. Of course change may be announced next week, but few believe that the stubborn Chancellor and his Government will actually stray too far from the plans originally announced. Those plans have a quite horrendous impact on households in Scotland and throughout the UK. For many real people, real families and real communities, the erosion of household income is quite extraordinary. The average figures of £1,200 a year or £100 a month is routinely used, and it is an accurate figure, but for some households the annual loss is around £4,000 a year. [Interruption.] The Tories may find this funny, but a loss of that amount of cash implies a marginal tax rate of 90% on some of the poorest working households in the country. If the Government were to propose that, the Tory Back Benchers would be up in arms, but because they are taking what they see as benefits from poor people, it is suddenly okay, because that is the way smirking Tories always think.

[Catherine West]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of the problem with working tax credit cuts is that they are concentrated in certain areas, which means that there is a double effect on the local economy, where that money is no longer going into the high street or into the pockets of children and others and the poverty effect is multiplied?

[Stewart Hosie]

The scenario whereby pockets of poverty exist in communities that have been more reliant on tax credits or other benefits is well known. Of course, those communities always suffer disproportionately when this sort of cut is made, so the hon. Lady is absolutely right. That is an argument for having not simply an economic policy, but some form of regional industrial strategy that will deliver not just any old job, but good jobs in every part of the country.

The real failure of this Government’s so-called “long-term economic plan” is the absence of any real strategy to deliver inclusive growth, and that is what concerns me most. To the SNP, inclusive growth is essential if we are to narrow the inequality gap and absolutely vital to deliver the overall economic growth we need. The UK lost 9% in GDP growth between 1990 and 2010 due to rising inequality, so it is unforgivable to see the same mistake being made all over again.

Let us look at the big picture of the UK’s economic record in the Chancellor’s own words:

“We don’t export enough; we don’t train enough; we don’t save enough; we don’t invest enough; we don’t manufacture enough; we certainly don’t build enough, and far too much of the economic activity…is concentrated…in the centre of London.”

He went on to say in his Mansion House speech:

“We will tackle each and every one of these weaknesses with the same determination we have brought to tackling the deficit—and we’ll draw the whole government effort together in a single plan for productivity”.

The problem is that, on productivity, which is an essential prerequisite, very little has been done. The UK still lags behind the US, Germany, France and even Italy in GDP per hour worked. Even on a GDP per worker basis, the UK is still not competitive. The position in Scotland is broadly similar: both Scotland and the UK sit at the top for the third quartile. We should both be doing so much better than that.

The focus should be on productivity, innovation, internationalisation, and investment in infrastructure, skills and inclusive growth, which I have mentioned. To be fair, the Minister talked about investment and infrastructure. I will come back to that, however, because I am not sure whether her version of the world really matches up either to reality or to what was announced in the summer Budget. For example, on innovation, the 2014 Budget increased the amount available for research and development tax credits—which is to be welcomed—but the UK Government simultaneously reduced the qualifying expenditure.

On exports—I am glad this is back on the political agenda—the deficit in trading goods for 2014 was £124 billion. The deficit on the current account was £93 billion, up from £77 billion the year before. These numbers are all going in the wrong direction. In the Red Book, the contribution to GDP from net trade is negative for the entire forecast period. For the entire period of this Parliament, the contribution to GDP from net trade is negative in every single year. Where is the plan to actually encourage innovation and to support more companies to export and to drive up productivity?

We know that productivity requires investment. The Economic Secretary mentioned that and I said I would come back to it. In particular, we need investment in infrastructure. That is vital for the future. The Economic Secretary is right that the Chancellor and the Government have announced yet another review, but in terms of cold hard cash, capital expenditure forecasts were down for every single year in the Parliament between the spring budget and the summer Budget. That is not the way, if any Government are serious about infrastructure.

When we talk about investment to grow the economy, it is also vital to include investment in education. That will, of course, be the subject of the second debate today, but may I put on record, because it is important to this debate, our view that the Tory approach to education in England runs contrary to the investment approach needed? May I also put on record, because it is in context, my pride at what the Scottish Government have achieved: better school results, a record 119,000 full-time college places, a record 33,000 young Scots going to university, a move towards 30,000 apprenticeships every year and more children than ever from poorer backgrounds going on to further and higher education? This is the investment in education that will deliver the economic growth of the future. [Interruption.] If the Minister wants to chunter or defend the position of the Government in England, I will happily take an intervention.

Today’s motion talks about green jobs. There is much to commend an approach that supports the green economy and investment in it, because of the export potential that goes with those jobs. Like so much else, however, the Tory failure on the economy has been replicated in its approach to the green economy. We saw that with decisions on onshore wind farms, the calculation of the renewable strike price compared to nuclear, and the shorter contract length, all of which sucked investment from that important industry. We have seen it with the failure of successive UK Governments to address the inequity of connectivity charges to the grid over many years.

Any real economic plan should correct the imbalance of a £25 kW charge to connect to the grid in the north of Scotland, against a £5.20 subsidy in London to allow maximising the opportunity of investment. Indeed, the International Energy Agency has suggested that the stop-go political support for renewables is detrimental to establishing a more secure energy system, and that Governments

“must remove the question marks over renewables.”

Even the UN’s chief environment scientist highlighted the damage the UK Government’s “reckless, regressive and irrational” cuts are doing to the support that is necessary to the renewables sector.

[Catherine West]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the CBI, which said in a recent all-party meeting that the Government’s policy on the solar industry has severely affected investor confidence?

[Stewart Hosie]

I do agree. I thought it was telling that when the announcement in relation to onshore wind farms was made in this place to remove any support for those that had not passed every single hurdle, Tory Back Benchers were on their feet making the first attack on the solar sector as well. I agree with the hon. Lady entirely.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[William Wragg]

If I may strip away the rhetoric from the hon. Lady’s intervention, of course I would disagree with pouring away taxpayers’ money in such a fashion.

Tomlinson’s evidence showed that the process was not open or transparent, nor was it a proportionate response from the bank. During the process, businesses were completely in the dark as to what was happening around them until it was far too late. Most worryingly, the businesses affected were often perfectly viable, and, but for the action of the bank, would have made a positive contribution to the UK economy. If the businesses concerned had had more options for moving their banking facilities, and there was more transparency before entering this process, they would have been better protected from the bank’s opportunistic behaviour through which it manipulated the businesses’ financial positions for its own gain.

The reported practices of RBS’s global restructuring group, if accurate, were, on a generous interpretation, dubious and questionable, but it may be fair and truer to say that they were unethical and scandalous. If the findings of the report that I have just summarised sound shocking or alarming to colleagues, they should do. However, consider how much more shocking and alarming it was for the victimised businesses and business owners involved—for the honest and hard-working businessmen and women and their employees, who saw their hard work and investment, often spanning years, eroded from under them; for those who lost their businesses, their jobs, their reputations, and in some cases their homes.

This, unfortunately, was the case for a business in my constituency. Pickup and Bradbury Ltd was owned by a constituent of mine, Mr Eric Topping. It was a medium- sized, family-owned construction firm operating out of Romiley. It engaged in mainly commercial construction contracts, with clients including large retailers, shopping centres, schools, HM Prison Service, several NHS sites, and a host of other local businesses. It was a well recognised and respected name in the construction industry across Greater Manchester. However, in 1998 Mr Topping and Pickup and Bradbury Ltd fell victim to exactly the kind of practices I have outlined. I shall not detain the House with the full details of the case, particularly as Ministers at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are aware of the full details, which I have passed on to them.

It may be of benefit to the House, though, if I briefly outline the example. Pickup and Bradbury was forcibly moved by RBS into the global restructuring group after the bank claimed that the business owed it a significant debt in excess of £700,000. My constituent acknowledges that the business had some debt, but it was perfectly capable of managing and servicing it. However, the crux of the case was that although the business balance sheet at the time showed assets of over £1 million, after the restructuring group process RBS placed a valuation on the business at negative £1.1 million—a discrepancy of over £2 million. The upshot was that this led to the forced liquidation of Pickup and Bradbury, costing the jobs of all its employees and forcing Mr Topping to sell his home. He contends to this day that the business was viable, and would still be trading if it were not for the actions of RBS, or if he had been given time to switch to another bank.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I think of a similar situation in which a small businesswoman had borrowed from and had a wonderful relationship with the bank manager, but the bank branch closed and the bank manager went. Suddenly the loan was called in and she lost her business on the high street selling children’s clothes, then had to go on benefits and had other financial difficulties. What a knock-on effect that has had not just within the sector, but in the wider local economy.

[William Wragg]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Lady’s remarks. The pattern has no doubt been repeated across the country in different circumstances, but with the same sorry result.

I know that the case in my constituency is not an isolated one, and the Tomlinson report suggests that the bank’s practice was widespread and systemic. RBS has failed to resolve the case of Pickup and Bradbury, and I am sure the same can be said of many hundreds of cases across the country. This is about more than just the numbers on a balance sheet; it is about people’s businesses, their jobs, their homes and their lives.

In addition to raising the issue on the Floor of the House today, I have previously written to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise about this case. This is obviously a cross-departmental issue covering both the Treasury and BIS. Will my hon. Friend the Minister confirm, on the record, that she is aware of my constituent’s case and similar cases across the country? Can she give an indication of how many small businesses it is estimated fell victim to RBS in a similar way?

The Business Minister has told me that the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority have been established by Parliament with legal powers to investigate this situation. I am also aware that two accountancy and consultancy firms, Promontory Financial Group and Mazars, have been appointed to carry out a skilled person review of the allegations against RBS. The FCA review is ongoing and I understand that it is not expected to report until the end of this year. Given that it is two years this month since the publication of the Tomlinson report, and in view of the fact that some of these cases of forced liquidation and destruction of viable businesses are over a decade old, that is an awfully long time to wait for justice or closure.

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[Jon Cruddas]

Point taken. The stakeholder banks across Europe kept the real economy going while commercial banks’ lending was crashing.

The third point is that in the UK we paid the price for having deliberately dismantled stakeholder banks in the 1980s via demutualisation. We left ourselves with nothing to break the catastrophic fall in lending by the big banks, and since the crisis we have done next to nothing to address that fatal structural flaw. I would have thought that we could all agree that a more resilient capitalism is a desirable outcome.

[Catherine West]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Government policy has helped the larger players? According to commentary in the financial pages in the past few months, there are things that the Government could have done to help mutuals, but instead they just continued to play with big business and help it at the cost of mutuals. What are they doing to help the mutual sector?

[Jon Cruddas]

That is a good point. What are they doing to build a more mixed economy that is more resilient and is not prone to the catastrophic speculative attacks and collapse in lending that we saw at the back end of 2008?

It is not just in times of crisis that we suffer from our lack of a stakeholder banking sector; it is a problem for us in good economic times too. Research by NEF has found that stakeholder banks devote twice as much of their balance sheets to real-economy lending as commercial banks. Meanwhile, commercial banks invest more than twice as much in derivatives trading. Stakeholder banks also outperform commercial banks on lending to small businesses in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, perhaps because they are rooted in local communities and can invest in local relationships, or because they do not have to worry about satisfying shareholders with double-digit quarterly returns. All this might help to explain why the UK banking system is the least effective in the G7 at supporting the real economy, with just over 20% of bank lending going towards productive activity, compared with more than 60% in Germany. Obviously, financial crises are the other side of the same coin, since the types of unproductive and speculative lending that dominate our banking system will tend to blow up bubbles which inevitably burst.

I could go on to list many other measures on which stakeholder banks appear to do better: higher customer satisfaction, higher deposit rates, lower loan rates, bigger branch networks, more job creation, and so on. Suffice it to say that if we want banks that put customers first, support the economy and manage risk sensibly, we could do worse than look to our European neighbours. I invite the Minister to publish the opposing evidence. Let us lay it out and have a discussion about the comparative views on the evidence underlying our public policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful for the wisdom and insight that has flashed on to my hon. Friend’s machine. His staff are very attentive and I look forward to them providing me with the IMF report so that I can go through it in great detail. I look forward to discussing it with him later. I am being intervened on from all sides. My hon. Friend makes me take on board the £500 billion mentioned by the IMF, while the hon. Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan) simply wants us to hit the five pounds tuppence per share. I am being pulled in different directions, but we all agree that RBS needs to be productive for the real economy.

That takes me to the heart of the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Edmonton. The long-delayed and long-drawn-out splitting off of Williams & Glyn from RBS has cost billions and taken a huge amount of management time. With the best will in the world, splitting up such organisations takes time, effort and money. I am really concerned that it could be an unnecessary distraction to try to pull a bank in as many as 130 different directions, as the hon. Lady proposes. I fear that the creation of multiple banks will lead to multiple dis-synergies and create entities that will find it much harder to access capital markets. It could be a very costly distraction and I am very nervous that it would not act in the interests of the broader economy. There are advantages that flow from a large, well-capitalised and well-regulated bank being able to spread its assets across the UK.

Although I wish the initial public offering of the Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank well, if it goes ahead in the new year, I fear that investors prefer the spread of banks across asset classes and across the whole of the UK, rather than regional entities. One only needs to remember the passion in this place regarding the steel industry to recognise how a major problem can have a ripple effect on small and medium-sized enterprises locally and cause huge problems for a regional economy. I fear that capital markets would reflect those risks in a higher cost of capital and scarce resources, particularly in those very areas of the country where we all wish to see the maximum amount of lending.

[Catherine West]

It think we could be convinced if the number of loans being given to small businesses since 2008 had rocketed. Instead it is flat because, quite rightly, the banking sector is looking inwards, although that is not to be encouraged. What incentive can Government policy create to make banks lend to the small businesses that keep our constituencies going?

[Jeremy Quin]

I will make a negative point and a positive point. On the negative side, I do not think that tackles my concern that smaller banks would have higher costs of capital and scarcer resources, making them less able to lend to smaller businesses. I think the hon. Lady would agree—my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove certainly would—that there is still a huge crisis in confidence in the major banks, and the last thing a lot of small businesses want to do is ask for a loan, because they are worried about the rug being pulled from underneath them. That process is going to take years to address.

Internationally, I do not think that the United States, given its overall funding strategies and the use of capital markets by corporates, presents Europe with a useful analogy. The caja banks in Spain were regionally focused and regionally driven, and they made huge investments in regional projects, but they have been a disaster and brought the Spanish economy crashing down. I acknowledge the historical success of Sparkassen and Landesbanken in Germany, but I fear that what happened to them during the crisis could happen elsewhere. The inability of Landesbanken to get local lending projects that more than met its cost of capital meant that it ended up taking on very risky investments in Europe, which helped to precipitate the Eurozone crisis

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I shall speak briefly against new clause 1. We as a nation need to be clear about the scale of the challenge that we face. The budget deficit has been halved, but it is still enormous and we are spending far more than we earn. Against that backdrop, the increase in welfare spending is an important element that must be addressed. The amount of spending on tax credits has risen from £6 billion when Gordon Brown first introduced them to £30 billion now. That money is being borrowed in order to pay for welfare. I do not think that borrowing money to pay for welfare expenditure is a sensible idea.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Let us look at the totality of welfare spending as though it were a cake. Is it not the case that the failure of the Government over the past five years to address the high cost of housing or to bring down the housing benefit bill is the key to solving your problem?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. It is not my problem. It is somebody else’s problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson]

We will be supporting the new clause—not because we are opposed to all welfare reform. Our voting record in this House and the fact that against the odds we have tried to drive through sensible welfare reform changes in Northern Ireland indicates that we do not take the blanket view that welfare reform is bad, full stop. Some of it is necessary, but some of it is wrong-headed, and this change is wrong-headed for a number of reasons.

First, I do not believe that the proposals will achieve what the Government want. We hear time and again—we have heard it today—that the Government want to make work pay and that those who go out every day to employment must have a reward for that and there must be an incentive. All the indications and assessments are that these proposals, because of their timing and their scale, will not make work pay. In fact, the OBR has said they will be a disincentive to work, because the rewards are being taken away from people but the mitigation will not be added quickly enough. Therefore, the objectives that the Government are setting out to achieve will not be achieved.

The second point is that in most cases we are not dealing with people who have a large buffer either of savings or additional income which can help them overcome the timing difficulty. We are talking about people on low wages and probably every penny that they earn goes on their living expenses. We have heard again today that as the tax credits come off, there will be tax cuts, additional childcare support and reductions in rent, and that all those things will mitigate the changes—and that on top of that there will be an increase in the national living wage. However, the tax credit cuts are coming in immediately, whereas the other things will be brought in over a period of time.

[Catherine West]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one way of bringing down the entirety of the welfare bill is to build more homes, so that we do not spend £60 billion in a Parliament on housing benefit?

[Sammy Wilson]

I agree, although that is not a short-term answer either. That is a long-term answer and it is certainly not going to deal with the issue facing us today.

The tax reductions will not affect all the people who are on low wages because they will not all hit the threshold. The childcare changes will affect only a fifth of the people whose tax credits will be cut. The national living wage increases will not apply, for example, to people under 25. So there is a whole swathe of the population who will not benefit from the other changes. Many of them will have families as well, of course. The Chancellor has said that the principal way in which the issue will be addressed is an increase in the national living wage, yet a whole swathe of the population will not be affected by that. For that reason, many people will be worse off. Even when all the changes are added together—the tax credits being removed, the tax thresholds being increased, the childcare element, the housing element, which does not apply to people in the private rented sector of course, and the national living wage—it is estimated that people will still find themselves on average a third worse off. This will affect many of our constituents.

Conservative Members should be very thankful that those in the House of Lords swapped their red Benches for red flags last night. That has probably done the Conservative party a favour. Many of the people who will be affected by these changes are the natural supporters of the Conservative party; they are the strivers of society, the people who want to do better, who want to improve themselves, and who probably look to some of the Government’s other policies. They will be hit hardest. I suspect that the Government have got off the hook, therefore.

The Government’s measures should be overturned by the House tonight and the Government should have a complete rethink. If they are serious about having a rethink, they should be supporting the amendments, to enable a radical rethink rather than a tinkering with the policy, which will be detrimental.

This question is rightly asked: what is the alternative? There are many alternatives. The changes represent less than 1% of total Government spending. Surely to goodness across Departments two thirds of 1% in savings can be found to finance dropping the changes. Over the life of this Parliament we can then work towards a sensible rebalancing, where employers pay proper wages and the state has to pay less in subsidies.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

We all share a belief in the welfare state, and in a civilised country like ours it is right that we offer help to the most needy, but the amendments are myopic and ill thought out because they forget about sustainability and fairness. Our welfare system is immensely unfair in its discrepancies. The clauses that would be amended—clauses 9 and 10—together freeze the main rates of most working age benefits, child benefit and certain elements of working tax credit and child tax credit for four years, starting from 2016-17, with important exemptions to protect the vulnerable, such as pensioners and those who are disabled, reflecting compassion and proportion.

Why are we doing that? Because since 2008 wages have risen by 12%, but for most working age out-of-work benefits the rise has been 21%. How can it possibly be fair or justifiable that the amount that people receive on benefits is increasing at a faster rate, and is more, than people receive in work? The freezes contained in clauses 9 and 10 go to the heart of reversing that damaging trend.

I want to make three key points about clauses 9 and 10. They support the original concept of welfare, as designed and intended by its father, Beveridge. In 1942, when the Beveridge report was published, he enshrined the key principles of what welfare should stand for—to help those who found themselves in occasional exceptional need. It was to help people cope with unexpected and temporary afflictions of sickness and unemployment.

[Catherine West]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Government’s proposals would affect 740,000 families in which there are children with disabilities?

[Suella Fernandes]

What I am aware of is that the reforms are part of a package that includes an increase of free childcare to 30 hours, which is worth about £5,000 and will help working families combine work and childcare. That is how we are going to help children. Work, not benefits, is the route out.

Beveridge’s guiding principles were clear—the individual has to take greater responsibility, alongside the state establishing a national minimum standard to ensure that the most vulnerable are looked after and that the system is sustainable. The main problem with the existing welfare system is that it has allowed businesses to act in a way that is both unpalatable and bad for the economy. It has facilitated the underpayment of workers, which has allowed chronic under-training and under-investment in staff. The problem is simple. If a business or an employer knows that low wages will be topped up by the state, what is the point of investing in its workforce? What is the point of investing in training or promotion?

Tax Credits

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

I will make a little more progress first.

It is worth reminding hon. Members exactly what the Government propose to do with these changes. First, they will effectively halve the threshold at which claimants start to see their tax credits award tapered away, from £6,420 a year to £3,850. Secondly, they will increase the rate at which the award is tapered away to zero. That means that for every pound that is earned above the threshold, their award will be tapered away by 48p. Previously, the rate was 41p. House of Commons figures show that a family with two children and two parents who earn the minimum wage will see a fall in their income of more than £1,800 next year. By the end of the Parliament, that family will lose a devastating £7,700.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this amounts to nothing less than a penalty for those in work? Such a work penalty is typical of this Government.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Conservative party claims to be there for the workers, but it is going against everything that hard-working families are doing to make ends meet. It is time for the Government to rethink what they are doing and stand up for those they pretended to stand up for at the time of the election.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I am afraid I could not put it better than my hon. Friend, and I will not try.

Under these reforms, fully half of families will still be eligible for tax credits, and the total cost will come down only to what it was as recently as 2008. They will focus support on the lowest incomes, while taking those on higher incomes off tax credits altogether.

[Catherine West]

How would the Minister, on behalf of a party that says it is on the side of working families, explain this change to the 2.7 million children affected? It is a disgrace.

[Damian Hinds]

Today’s bills will be paid at some point. We believe that the challenges for this generation should be dealt with by this generation, and we believe we need to get our finances under control and eliminate the deficit, and not just pass on the problem to our children and grandchildren.

Tax Credits

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

In various parts of the country unemployment is still unacceptably high. Whether someone can easily pick up extra hours depends on which part of the country they live in, which sector of the economy they work in and what caring commitments they might have, whether for children or other family members. It is not so straightforward when lots of parents are chasing part-time work between the hours of 9 am and 2.30 pm, when their children are at school. A lot of part-time work needs to be done outwith those hours, when parents have real difficulties accessing childcare.

The charity Gingerbread has today pointed out that some lone parents working full time on the minimum wage with one child will, by 2020, be no better off than non-working lone parents were in 2010. By 2020 many parents working full time will have fallen even further below the minimum income standard than they are at present, but essentially they will be no better off working full time than they would have been had they been out of work five years ago. Where is the work incentive in that? If we really want to incentivise work, we should be increasing work allowances, as my party proposed in the run-up to the general election, not cutting them. That would incentivise work and cut child poverty.

Once again, we have been told today that increases in the minimum wage will compensate for those losses, but the numbers simply do not stack up. Even if the Government proposed raising the minimum wage to the level of the current living wage, which is already £7.85 an hour—well above the Government’s proposed ceiling—the calculation of the living wage is based on not only the cost of living but the assumption that low-paid families are already receiving their full entitlement to tax credits at the current rate.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Resolution Foundation, trade unions and others have all pointed out that the proposed increases in the minimum wage, and indeed the increases in the personal tax allowance, will not make up for the loss of tax credits. The crucial point is that if we cut tax credits in the way the Government are proposing today, the minimum wage would have to rise substantially further, to around £11 an hour, just to keep incomes standing still in real terms.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Has the hon. Lady considered the impact of the proposed changes on the housing benefit bill, particularly in the private rented sector?

Finance Bill

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

First, as this is the last day of term—or at least it has the feel of the last day of term—may I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all the team in the Speaker’s Office for their warm welcome to all us new Members? That has made a huge difference to the beginning of what I hope is a long parliamentary career.

When I saw that today’s business would be a Second Reading debate on the Finance Bill with such exciting Ministers giving their remarks I thought it might be a bit dry, but in fact it has been stimulating and interesting, in particular the discussion of wages. I am glad we have got on to the question of low pay; that came up in the election and I am very pleased that the Treasury team has given it some thought. However, as somebody who worked hard on the living wage at local government level, I am a little concerned that it took a long time to introduce it in a meaningful way; the current living wage is £9.15 in London and introducing that in inner London takes an enormous amount of work for a large organisation such as a local authority or a business.

I am also a little worried about there being a cliff-edge in respect of the removal of working tax credits from those on low pay. We need a sliding scale to cover the fact that we have such a flexible workforce, which many say is a good thing. The trouble with that is that people can be in and out of work, on varying rates of pay in different sorts of employment, and have numerous different employment situations. Working tax credits tend, therefore, to be a safety net for people on low incomes, so, although this debate about low pay is to be welcomed, I am concerned that we will end up with less security for low-paid people. It may even create a perverse incentive: people may not want to take risks in the workplace and may even turn back to benefits. They may be worried that over the long term they will not be able to sustain themselves on what the Government call a living wage but which, in fact, is just an increase in the minimum wage.

[Mr MacNeil]

I hope the hon. Lady agrees that the Chancellor, in his description of the new wage that he has earmarked, has tried to downgrade what we all know as the living wage. That is reprehensible.

[Catherine West]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and wish him a happy birthday. I am sure it is wonderful to be 21 again.

I understand that there are many examples of the living wage up in Caledonia, and many London authorities and others are trying their darnedest to introduce the living wage, which is a good and positive step.

Clause 45, on the climate change levy, removes the levy exemption for renewable source electricity generated on or after 1 August 2015. Unhappily, that is an example of the Tories undermining investor confidence in renewable energy. They have already tried to halt the development of the cheapest form of clean energy, by pulling the plug on onshore wind, and that comes hot on the heels of the rather flat green deal. I am not sure whether any Members know about the green deal. It was introduced back in 2010, it was heralded and much money was spent on it. The promotion money probably helped a few public relations companies to keep going, but the number of households that took up the deal was very low.

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. May I remind her of the promise made—it sounds bizarre now, though I remember it being made at the time—to be the greenest Government ever?

[Catherine West]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Does she also remember the huskies trip? I am not sure whether we will be visiting polar bears any more with the huskies, but I remember around 2009 the promise to which she refers and, for a short while, a real sense that we were generating some momentum and genuinely approaching green issues with energy and commitment.

I wonder whether, as we move towards the Paris summit, we will see any improvement and any genuine debate, because this Budget fails to give any hope on the green agenda. I am pleased that Opposition colleagues have chosen the climate change levy as one of three topics to be debated in Committee in September. That is when we will all have more of a chance to debate this important deal—or lack of—and when we will table amendments.

Some of the statements on taxation are quite welcome, particularly those provisions that assist people on low and medium incomes. However, there are other provisions with which we could do more. In particular, we could consider gaining a little bit more from the financial sector. As we know, there have been some announcements on anti-avoidance measures. Provided that HMRC is resourced adequately to deal with those, we might see some positive developments in that regard.

However, we could be doing much more in relation to private equity and hedge fund managers. We could strengthen some of the proposed measures around the “Mayfair” tax loophole. For example, we could look at how private equity fund managers manage to shrink their tax bills, arranging to pay 28% capital gains tax rather than 45% income tax, which is what we could be getting.

Members will be aware from their advice surgeries that we are still in the tail of the recession. There should not be one rule for certain people in society and another rule for others. That is why we need to consider charging that 45% income tax rate—rather than the 28% capital gains tax—on the portion of income paid out of the profits of the funds that those managers manage, which is called carried interest. Carried interest is their remuneration for managing other people’s money and should therefore really be taxed as income tax. Their ability to pay capital gains tax on what is properly income also allows fund managers to avoid paying any national insurance contributions on a major portion of their income.

The “Mayfair” tax loophole also permits some fund managers to reduce their tax bills even further, sometimes qualifying for additional capital gains reliefs such as entrepreneurs’ relief. I do not hear that being offered to the small cafés or the small businesses on our high street, but the entrepreneurs’ relief for people in the City allows them to pay just 10% tax on up to £10 million of their carried income. That is why I throw back the idea that this is a Budget for working people—perhaps it is a Budget for those who work in the square mile. Some people in the City are still getting a 40% tax cut. They are paying less tax on much of their income than many nurses and teachers. We know what is happening to public sector recruitment: we are losing nurses and teachers every day, because they tend to earn much lower wages than others, and of those wages they are paying a higher proportion in tax than our friends in the City.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Is it not the case that raising the tax threshold to £12,500 may help not only those in the City who are paid very low rates, but the very people that the hon. Lady is talking about outside the square mile?

[Catherine West]

I am very concerned about those people who are on that level. Indeed, many people in the financial sector, a large percentage of whom live in my constituency, work very long hours and are on low pay. I welcome some of the new tax changes, which is why I will abstain rather than vote against Second Reading tonight. However, we also know that certain others who go in on the tube with those lower paid workers, or ride their bikes in with them, might, in a good year, be earning between £1.2 million to £15 million or more. Using the private equity industry’s own statistics, we estimate that the “Mayfair” loophole may be sacrificing UK tax revenues of between £280 million to £700 million every year. That is likely to be a conservative estimate as it does not take into account forgone national insurance contributions, or the effects of some fund managers qualifying for additional entrepreneurs’ relief. Given that the Chancellor’s smaller plans are predicted to raise more than £350 million a year, we can be confident that a further tightening of the rules will raise substantially more. A simple legislative change, similar to those already achieved in our neighbouring European countries— I make no apologies for mentioning the word “Europe” in this Chamber—could ensure that some of the highest earners of the financial sector start to pay a fairer share in tax. That could be introduced as early as in this Bill, with a small change to the proposed legislation.

In conclusion, let me make some general points about productivity. The first relates to childcare, and this Budget and Bill and the various elements of productivity that need to accompany them. I understand from press reports this morning that various Departments face a difficult time on their savings targets, and I am worried that some of the good things that have come out of this Budget, small though they be in number, will be undermined by things such as the lack of childcare provision. In particular, I am thinking about cuts to local authorities, which are trying to introduce the Government’s 30-hour pledge on childcare. Children’s centres and Sure Start centres will once more be facing terrible cuts. We know that it is crucial to get women, and parents in general, back into the workforce, and that that is key to proper growth in the economy. Many economists have estimated that if we can return women to the workforce within two years after the birth of their first child—and indeed after the birth of subsequent children—the economy can take off exponentially. In many local authority areas, however, children’s centres and nurseries are closing, whereas they should be remaining open to provide that crucial childcare.

[Mr MacNeil]

I fully support what the hon. Lady is saying, and she had no less an authority than Tim Harford in the Financial Times writing, about seven or eight weeks ago, on exactly the same point. He highlighted how Sweden has done exactly what she is describing: enabled women to go back into the workplace, to develop their skills and to go further—and of course this yielded higher taxes—unlike in the UK, where they decide to stay at home and the taxman and mothers lose out.

[Catherine West]

I agree. There are many positive examples of universal free childcare in other European countries and I wonder whether that is the sort of measure we should be looking at, rather than just cutting back for cutting back’s sake.

Childcare is crucial, but so, too, is transport. Unfortunately, in the past fortnight the Government have announced that important rail projects are no longer going to go ahead, including electrification in the midlands, and they have dithered over the airport decision, perhaps because there is division in the top ranks of the Conservative party. Those sorts of decision need to be taken quickly, at the beginning of the Parliament, so that we give the right signals about getting on with investing in our infrastructure and in social mobility.

We know that young people will be negatively affected by this Budget, not just by the cuts to housing benefit and the reduction in working tax credits for younger families, but by the transition from university grants to loans. This does not specifically relate to the debate on this Bill, but we know that the background to the Bill is the situation young people face when coming out of university. I know of a student at London Metropolitan University who will come out with a £54,000 debt after three years of studying social care and will be virtually unable to pay that back over her working life. The good announcements on the employment and training levy are undermined by the university grants situation and the 24% projected cuts to further education, which we know provides the glue to bring together the crucial employment provisions.

I could not sit down in this Chamber without quickly mentioning housing, which, as we know, is crucial, and not only to a vibrant economy and not only in the social housing sector, which I have specialised in over the years. Affordable housing is also crucial to the workforce and to those who wish to rent in the private sector, given that in London and the south-east that sector is ridiculously expensive. A family with three children who wish to rent in Finsbury Park—not Chelsea, but Finsbury Park—would require a household income of £75,000 to do so. Indeed, the average age at which Londoners get on to the housing ladder is now closer to 40 than to 30. It is crucial that we address this situation in this Parliament so that we can address social mobility and productivity. Unless a young person has access to unlimited family funds for education and housing, they face, under this Government and with this Budget and this Finance Bill, a genuinely bleak future.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. While I am on the subject of apprenticeships, it is worth remembering that the number of apprentices still not receiving the legal minimum wage is alarming. According to the Government’s recent apprenticeship pay survey, 15% are not receiving the appropriate minimum wage, rising to 24% for young apprentices. If we want more young people to study the science, technology, engineering and maths skills that we need them to study, taking away the maintenance grant from the poorest who want to study those subjects at university is hardly the way to encourage that. The Government are taking a huge gamble that that policy will not deter students from lower-income households from going to university.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that cuts to further education of up to 24% could undermine the good idea of the employment levy? That is the glue that holds the whole thing together.

[Mr Umunna]

That is a good point. The cuts that the Government are making in FE are already having a hugely negative impact, not least in the college that the Secretary of State attended.

To go back to undergraduate student financing, I note that the Government are switching from student grants to loans, but that simply dumps more debt on students. In the end, that is debt that, along with the loans taken out to pay tuition fees, will end up in the hands of the taxpayer. It is estimated, according to House of Commons Library figures, that that will add £280 billion to the national debt and we have heard no solutions from the Government to address that.

In the 2011 plan for growth, the Government told us to judge them not only against their achievements on skills but on whether they helped to deliver a substantial boost in business investment. Clearly, we must address that, because, as I said, our performance lags behind that of our competitors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)]

It is a privilege to be called to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna).

There is much to commend in this excellent Budget, but to me one conclusion stands out: that by the end of this Parliament, under this Government, Britain will live within its means. No more irresponsible borrowing. No more spiralling debt at the taxpayer’s expense. No more passing the debt to the next generation. I was delighted to hear the Chancellor’s plans for this nation finally to run a budget surplus.

I have spent my career in business. Every company I have been involved in sets a budget, as indeed does every household in this nation, and when they do they operate with these basic principles: first, “How much is coming in?” and only then, “How much can I spend?” For too long, Governments have got that back to front, spending first, ignoring how much is coming in, then letting borrowing endlessly make up the difference.

Coming from a financial background, I decided to spend some time analysing our nation’s fiscal history. I wanted to know, when it comes to our Government’s revenue, how much does in fact come in. I can tell the House that, since 1955, tax receipts, with limited variation and remarkable consistency, have averaged 36% to 38% of GDP. In spite of the vast differences between Labour and Conservative Members in our approach to setting tax rates, the average tax take has been remarkably similar under Governments of both parties. There appears to be a natural ceiling to what any Government can extract from the pockets of its hard-working taxpayers.

That to me suggests a simple conclusion: in normal times, public spending should not exceed 37% of GDP. That is the best estimate of our income as a Government and therefore the best guide to what we can afford to spend. So the Government’s plans to get public spending to that level are not, as some Opposition Members have suggested, an ideological crusade or clever politics; rather, tackling excessive public spending is simply the sensible, logical and responsible course of action. That action, taken to make sure that we live within our means, is the same course of action that any business or household would take when presented with the facts. We all know what happens when those facts are ignored: more borrowing, more debt.

[Catherine West]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about debt. Does he agree that a graduate in social care from London Metropolitan University with personal debt of £54,000 not only has a personal problem on her hands, but represents a long-term national problem for us, because in the end we will have to pick up that debt?

[Rishi Sunak]

It is clear that university graduates’ earning power is raised. It is hardly fair to ask people working hard without the benefits of a university degree to pay for the earnings of someone in the legal profession or the City who is earning a great deal. That is why this Government created a progressive system whereby those who earn more pay more back and those who do not pay just a fair share.

[Catherine West]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Rishi Sunak]

I would like to make some progress. As you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, many people wish to speak.

All debts need to be repaid, with interest. For the next generation, that means higher taxes or less money to spend on public services. As the hon. Member for Streatham said, we already spend more money on debt interest than we do on the police, transport or housing. That simply cannot go on.

Whether one is a Thatcherite or a Trotskyite, the rules of budgeting are the same: one cannot sustainably spend more than one earns. I commend the Chancellor for acting on that principle and ensuring that Britain’s finances will once again be back in the black.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to be speaking in the Budget debate. The Chancellor’s announcement on the increase in the minimum wage, mistakenly called a living wage, raised the issue of low pay. That is a debate we all welcome. Sadly, when it is combined with high housing costs and cuts to working tax credits, families in my constituency will be worse off. I will not vote in favour of this Tory Budget. Not only will many families be worse off following the Chancellor’s Budget; it has failed to address the deeper issue of social mobility.

This was not a good Budget for young people. For younger people, it is becoming more expensive to attend further education or to secure well-paid employment, and it is much more difficult for them to get on to the housing ladder. The employment training levy, to be levied against workplaces, could provide much needed workplace training opportunities. However, coupled with the proposed cuts to further education due in the autumn, training programmes could be at risk—one step forward, two steps back. Converting student maintenance grants into student personal debt will increase the debt of our young students further. In one case I know of, a student will leave a local university with £56,000 of personal debt—hardly a good start to a career for a young professional.

Preventing under-24-year-olds from gaining access to housing benefit could lead to long-term homelessness problems among a small but needy group of youngsters— many of the rough sleeping population are in this critical age group—creating not just personal misery, but further cost to the NHS in later years.

The cost and availability of childcare is a major block to productivity, and in high value areas such as London it is becoming prohibitively expensive. Childcare cuts to Sure Start and children’s centres undermine the Government’s excellent 30-hour childcare commitment, slowing down parents’ return to work and preventing the return to work of much needed skilled workers. Assessments show that returning women to work in London would be a real spur to the economy. Unfortunately, owing to the prohibitive cost of childcare and lack of childcare places following cuts to Sure Start and children’s centres, we have a false economy.

Renting in the private rented sector is now prohibitively expensive. A family would need a household income of £75,000 per annum to rent a modest three-bedroom property in Finsbury Park in my constituency. This is unaffordable and represents a failure of the housing market to support local families. By spending such a high proportion of income on housing costs, people are unable to save eventually to get on to the housing ladder. The average age of first-time buyers is going up every year in London. We are becoming not just a city of renters, but a nation of renters. Many of our children are in low-quality, high-cost housing with no hope of remaining in the local area to look after us in our older age.

While some elements of the Budget, such as applying the brakes on buy-to-let property, might have benefits, they are undermined by a failure to announce more new affordable housing and by the regressive right-to-buy housing association discounts, which set us back decades on housing supply. We must address the supply issue; it is critical.

Furthermore, pay freezes in public sector employment will be bad for young people. We know we have a crisis in retaining teachers, particularly in English and maths. We know we have a problem retaining nursing staff in our A&Es and our local hospitals. This pay freeze for the public sector is detrimental. Unless young people have access to unlimited family funds for their education, housing and training, they face a bleak future under this Tory Chancellor.

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Lady has listed a number of steps that would lead to an increase in expenditure to cover some of the important topics she mentioned. Does she accept, however, the overall need, while we are borrowing over £70 billion a year, to reduce expenditure more each year so we can get back into balance? Does she accept that general trend in principle?

[Catherine West]

Let me deal with aspects of the question of expenditure in turn. First, the employment training levy is being levied on small businesses by your Government. It is not a Labour proposal, but I support it because it is about investing in the workplace. Secondly, the position on student maintenance grants amounts to cost shunting—taking the costs from the university and putting them on to the individual. I referred to a case of a student owing £56,000, so instead of it sitting on the balance books of the Chancellor, it is sitting on those of the individual, which is a bad thing. Thirdly, we spent £60 billion on housing benefit over the last Parliament. We should have invested more of that in new build housing. We should not forget that council housing is not a cost. It is a net contributor to the economy because the rent is so low that housing benefit is not payable on many council properties. Housing benefit is mainly payable in the private rented sector. By investing in social homes, we will be saving the housing benefit bill in the longer term. Finally, on childcare, your own pledge by your own Government is 30 hours per week—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. The hon. Lady must speak through the Chair, so she should be referring to the hon. Gentleman in the third person.

[Catherine West]

How did I forget that? Through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am saying that the Government have pledged to provide 30 hours a week childcare, which is an excellent pledge, but it is not a Labour proposal. In fact, Labour proposed something more modest and more affordable. I am thus a little worried that the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) thinks that we are over-spending, when this is a pledge of his own Government. I wonder whether it will happen, though; I worry about the feasibility. If we go through all those elements, we find that they are not really about cost; they are about feasibility and getting the job done.